


red to the thorns

by signalbeam



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Butt Plugs, Canon Compliant, Communication Issues, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Constipation, F/F, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Jealousy, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, Relationship Study, Scars, Self-Esteem Issues, Strap-Ons, Vaginal Fisting, Vaginal Sex, War, background hubert/ferdinand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:46:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 88,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22398784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signalbeam/pseuds/signalbeam
Summary: “Are you saying there is nothing you would kill for? Not the goddess? Or Adrestia? The right suitor, if one should arise?”“If I have to kill to get a husband, then I’d rather be alone,” Dorothea said, wrinkling her nose. “In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need any of this, would we?”Dorothea finds a cause.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault & Hubert von Vestra, Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg, Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 307
Kudos: 585





	1. believers

**Author's Note:**

> This is primarily a relationship study fic, but one with a shameless amount of porn. I swear it's mostly relevant. The fic starts in the academy phase and continues through the war phase and then covers some ground post-canon, as well.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse of the future.

For months after joining the Officers’ Academy, Dorothea sincerely believed she would never grasp Faith magic. The Black Eagles’ healing unit consisted of Linhardt and everyone’s personal stash of vulneraries, and she would have liked to keep it that way. The professor clearly thought she was horrible: they kept dabbing at their forehead as they tutored her. Usually, she’d feel flattered that her presence made people sweat. 

“Really, it’s that bad?” she said. 

“Some talents require time to bloom,” they said, their voice full of authority and their face gently stressed. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t know the gestures or the incantations. She could even twirl herself in the air while healing. For all her technical competency, people’s wounds would only be healed halfway, and she’d have to call Linhardt to finish the job. She would prefer to follow Manuela’s footsteps and become an excellent healer and medic to her current job on the field, which was to stand behind Petra or Caspar and cast Thunder. What a shame! She was an awful healer. 

She used to think that she’d only use magic for self-defense. Then she thought that at least they’d be far away enough and the lightning bright enough to keep her from seeing the worst of what she was doing. 

I’m good at this, she thought, her eyes flashing with afterimages and the top of her tongue dry from the ozone released by her thunderbolts. The sight of her enemies jolted by their doom, their faces turned to the sky, stayed in her eyes no matter how hard she tried to blink it away. 

#

To help train her in Faith, the professor occasionally asked her to attend to students in the infirmary. Manuela was happy to provide extra instruction and have an extra pair of hands to speed up the work, even if Dorothea sometimes did the entire thing, the incantation, the arm movements, the float in the air and spin around, to no effect. Sometimes all Dorothea did was restock the shelves, check and document the medicine stores, take the sheets to be laundered or burned, and greet people as they came in to be treated.

Her most frequent visitors were Caspar and the Blue Lions, on account of their collective zest for flinging themselves into harm, but occasionally she got treats. That was to say, sometimes her friends came by. Petra twisted her ankle jumping down a tree and said charming, excitable things while Dorothea tried to blast her swollen leg with as much healing magic as possible. Ferdinand took a blow to the head while on a training mission and was laid up in the infirmary to be Dorothea’s personal head injury training dummy; there, her failures were an opportunity to make fun of Ferdinand and watch him wince and feel pity for him. And once, even Edelgard had to come by. 

When Edelgard came, Manuela was out for lunch. She trusted Dorothea to treat anyone who came by, she said. Chances were, she needed a midday drink and knew Dorothea wouldn’t begrudge her that. 

It was hot and thundering outside. Edelgard came into the infirmary with her hair ribbons damp and spots of rain on her jacket. Even though it was noon, Dorothea had to light the lamps to see. 

“Poor Edie,” Dorothea said, unwinding the towel Edelgard used to staunch the bleeding. She had to cut the silk-lined glove off her hand and looked up at Edelgard as she did so. Edelgard didn’t seem to notice or mind. Dorothea felt both a stab of envy, for her own want of riches, and a more delicate concern for Edelgard’s refusal to show pain. The cut was messy and rough along its edges; the kitchen cooks needed to sharpen their knives. Still, she didn’t wince when Dorothea dabbed the wound with alcohol and herbs. 

It was the first time Dorothea had seen Edelgard’s ungloved hand. It was less dainty than she supposed it’d be, with its callused palm and fingers. The skin on the back of her hand looked soft, though it was marked by cuts, burns, and more unusually, her little finger had a march of scars all along the outer edge. She recognized the shape as rat bites: she had seen beggars and convicts with them, and other orphans, too. When she looked up, Edelgard was staring directly at her, looking like she might command Dorothea to forget what she saw. 

Dorothea pulled her sleeves back. “Look,” she said, holding her wrist up to the lamp. “We match! I learned why no one sleeps in the alleys behind Saint Seiros’ shrine the hard way.” 

“We do.” She turned her hand so the rat scars were not facing Dorothea. “I’m sorry. Enbarr should be a kinder city.”

Dorothea knew a dodge when she heard one. She pinched the edges of the wound closed. “This should be easy enough. I’ll have you out soon.” 

It was a good thing, she thought, that she hadn’t been entrusted to care for Edelgard’s face. Palms were a forgiving part of the body, and she knew she hadn’t done a beautiful job. The wound scarred as a thin, raised white line. She had Edelgard make a fist, bend her fingers back, and bring her thumb to each of her four fingers. 

When Edelgard was satisfied with the results, she crossed her arms, keeping her bare hand between her elbow and her body. “Are you thinking about joining the support mages?” 

“The basic heals spells are easy enough, but I’m hopeless at the teleportation spells and the more advanced heals. Whether I want to be good at it or not, I’m much better on the attack.” 

“‘Whether you want to or not?’” she said, sounding amused. “Are you saying there is nothing you would kill for? Not the goddess? Or Adrestia? The right suitor, if one should arise?” 

“If I have to kill to get a husband, I’d rather be alone,” Dorothea said, wrinkling her nose. “In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need any of this, would we?” 

“It depends,” Edelgard said, tilting her head to the side in sincere thought. “What kind of perfect world are you thinking of?” 

“One where everyone’s happy. Or one where I’m happy, at least. A house in the country, a house in the city, and a hot bath whenever I should want it.” She knew how selfish she sounded, but she had never had her own home or even her own furniture, and even at Garreg Mach, if she wanted a hot bath, she had to cast Fire on the bath water before getting in. “And I’d like someone there so I won’t be too lonely, but that’s so in the air. What does your perfect world look like, Edie?” 

“War would be unavoidable, at first. But it won’t be war without purpose. It’ll be for the people—all people, not just the nobility. And out of the fires of war, we’ll forge a more perfect, lasting peace. I’m willing to stake my head on it.” 

Lightning flashed. The thunder was so close that Dorothea felt it in her sternum and in the empty space in her throat. She turned to look out the window, but was aware of Edelgard’s untroubled posture, as though she would have accepted being struck by the heavens without complaint. Dorothea knew when she asked Edelgard for her perfect world, she’d see just how small and minor her dreams were, but she hadn’t expected the point to be underscored by lightning, which she so often thought of as her element to command. Dorothea would have no place in the world Edelgard imagined. Of course not. How could that world have any room for someone as selfish as her? 

She was staring at the window, feeling sorry for herself, when Edelgard put her hand, the still-gloved one, on her elbow. 

“I can see you there,” Edelgard said. “In your country house, taking a bath after spending the day walking in your gardens.” 

She felt a strange sort of orphan wretchedness that disguised itself as a squirming, pathetic gratitude for the warmth of Edelgard’s calluses on her skin. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “In your perfect world, I’d stay in the city to be closer to you.” 

#

She eventually did get Linhardt to tutor her in white magic, although he was even worse of a teacher than she thought. 

“I’m a principled man,” he said, lying in the grass without even putting a blanket to separate himself from the dirt. He had brought a book to shield his eyes from the sun and a pillow. Of course he brought a pillow. “Bloodshed is fundamentally immoral. Teaching you magic so you can become better at helping our friends become better at bloodshed is therefore immoral.”

“So, what?” she said. “I should let our friends die because I’m that bad at learning Heal?” 

“Our lack of skill will make them more strategic in their battles and less inclined to engage in needless fights.” 

“If only everyone was as logical as you,” she said, patting his side. He squirmed away. She grabbed his shoulder and forced him to look at her. “You know that’s not going to happen, so you might as well teach me.” 

He said that if she practiced next to him, he might find it in him to give her some pointers in between naps. It was so condescending that she could have strangled him. She almost went right back to the monastery. His advice was not exactly helpful, but not exactly unhelpful, either. It was somehow too technical and too vague at the same time; in other words, useless for the time being. 

The last thing he said before she went back to town was, “You don’t see Hubert honing his white magic skills. He’s so bad at it that even the professor gave up. You’re that type of mage. Nothing wrong with it. Graduating from here means you can start off as a lieutenant in the Imperial Army, doesn’t it? You’ll have plenty of eligible potential husbands there.” 

“I’ll be married long before then, I hope!” 

“But what if you’re not? Don’t get mad at me for being honest with you.” 

It depressed her to imagine herself being useful to another person. She’d rather have people be useful to her, for one; but she also couldn’t imagine the mind of the type of person enjoyed, or even relished, being a tool for someone else’s purpose. Hubert, obviously, and Dedue seemed happy enough in their roles. But neither of them were strictly normal, and it seemed so hopeless: pouring all of your efforts into another person, throwing your whole self into it, and getting what in return? Her mother had died sincerely believing someday they’d go to her father’s house and live there as family. 

All of that love and devotion put into people who could never return it, like pouring water into a hole. 


	2. civics (i)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter: Hubert!

Dorothea wasn’t hopeless after all. She became decent enough at healing, good enough that she could use Heal on the battlefield without a single misfire. She believed in her own skill, at least. During their one-on-one tutoring sessions, the professor no longer looked tense as they pulled out the Faith manual. The next spell would be Physic. 

The world was headed towards interesting times. They fought Lonato, then went after Miklan, and were preparing for the battle of the Eagle and the Lion. Rumor had it that generals from the Adrestian and Faerghian armies would be watching and taking note. 

The professor took them out on riskier, more dangerous training missions. In the Red Canyon, they fought a quartet of Demonic Beasts. It had gone badly: a fifth Beast, a giant vulture, had been waiting in the trees and flanked them. Petra, Ferdinand, and Caspar were triaged for advanced medical treatment and taken away to be treated by the healing battalion. The others were assigned to heal themselves or ask Dorothea and the professor for treatment. Edelgard checked in on Bernadetta and Dorothea; Linhardt was off helping with the medics. When the professor asked if Edelgard needed care, she said, dismissively, “My shield took the worst of it.” 

Dorothea had watched Edelgard disappear under the beast’s claws. She hadn’t thought Edelgard would withstand it and cried out a warning. The massive claw broke apart and Edelgard’s axe cut right through. It had been one of those surprisingly common superhuman moments her classmates were capable of that Dorothea was always afraid would never come. The hairs cut by the enemy’s axe swing, a second arrow in the hand and set loose before the eye could blink, a clever gambit just as the battalion’s spirits were nearly extinguished—it felt like too much good luck. 

“Lady Edelgard has been checked already, and she’s in good condition,” Hubert said, looking only slightly ridiculous looming behind her with his right arm in a sling. 

“I hope you weren’t the one doing the check,” Dorothea said. “What do you even do during the professor’s Faith lessons? You say you’re taking notes, but they look like letters to me.” 

“Be strong, Dorothea!” Bernadetta said as Hubert glowered. 

“If no one else needs help, then get out of my way,” Dorothea said. “I need to patch Bern back up, and we don’t need all of you watching.” 

Bernadetta had been injured by the flung rocks. Some deep bruises on her shoulder and thigh, no breaks, luckily. Still, it had to hurt; she was trembling under Dorothea’s hands. Dorothea did like this element of healing, where she got to take care of people. The bruises and cuts were no longer merely horrible. They were things she could fix. 

Bernadetta’s shoulders were getting definition. Ordinarily, she’d comment. There were many young men and women who would welcome it, but Bernadetta would likely pass out. Healing was unpleasant enough for her as it was without people going on about her body. 

“There, we’re all alone now,” Dorothea said. “Do you need anything from me to make you more comfortable, Bern? A pillow? A hot towel for your head?” 

“A hot towel, please,” she said. Dorothea heated the towel with her hand and wrapped Bernadetta’s face in it, the way she had wrapped up the faces of some nobles before shaving them. She liked binding up their senses that way; although in this case, she thought Bernadetta would prefer to stare at the dark than to watch Dorothea work. 

It was about half an hour before she was finished. She gave Bernadetta her jacket, since Bernadetta’s had been ripped during the fight, and walked her back to her tent. Then she went to check on Edelgard. 

#

Edelgard’s tent, from the outside, looked no different from the others, but was positioned close to the Knights of Seiros and the professor’s tent, far from the entrance. The tent flaps had the double-headed eagle on them instead of the Church’s emblem. Dorothea entered the tent’s outer layers but didn’t advance further. She could hear Hubert talking with Edelgard inside. 

“…doesn’t have a decagram in it, why would it…” 

“Of course, Your Highness. But the textbook disagrees with you.”

“It does not. Look again. It’s an inverted hexagram with two offset triangles.” 

“I have looked and looked again. Your imperial orbs, fortified by twelve hundred years of Hresvelg blood, divine twelve points, yet my ordinary eyes see only ten.” 

“Don’t make light of me, Hubert, or I’ll have you fitted for glasses like Ignatz. The triangles have one vertex each inside the hexagram.” 

“Hubie, Edie, it’s me,” Dorothea said. “Are you busy?” 

“You may enter,” Hubert said. 

Dorothea stepped into the inner chamber. Hubert had removed his jacket and shirt and was sitting in his undershirt, his injured arm out of the sling and its bandages. There were shiny, pink scars on his arms, freshly healed. Edelgard had thrown on a cape over her armor and held a Faith manual in one hand. The scene was so lacking in any kind of scandal that Dorothea felt a palpable disappointment. 

Edelgard’s door and tent were, technically, always open to the rest of the house. Edelgard had made a point of telling them they should always feel free to ask after her, but Dorothea had never thought to go into her private quarters before, largely because the only people who took advantage of the privilege were Ferdinand—she did not want to be in the same category of intrusion as Ferdinand—and Hubert. Aside from the extra cloths hanging on the poles, her tent was austere: a miserly looking pillow, a folding desk piled with papers, a stool to sit on, and a Brigid cow skin rug. Dorothea had one of those rugs in her tent, too. 

“Have you come to join our study session?” Edelgard said. “Mine, rather. Hubert refuses to learn.” 

“I wanted to check on you. I didn’t know you were interested in learning white magic. When you’re emperor, do you plan on healing beggars and orphans on Saint Seiros Day?” 

“If it will restore the people’s faith in the emperor’s office, I would gladly do so,” Edelgard said. Hubert, behind her, narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. “Though I have a long way to go before I can consider myself a master.” 

“It’s not worth your time.”

“We won’t always have healers with us. Say that the two of us are traveling alone and we encounter difficulty—”

“It would matter not if I lost one limb or two, as long as you were safe,” Hubert said. “I’ll remind you that time spent on white magic comes at the expense of your other training, Your Highness. Training that makes you better suited for cutting a path forward instead of turning back to save those who’d receive better care from someone else.” 

It really was as though Dorothea wasn’t in the room sometimes when she was with them. She had made fun of Hubert for being in love, but every time she listened in on one of their private conversations, she wondered whether he knew what love might look like outside of mindless sacrifice. Edelgard for her part looked at least discouraged by Hubert’s blood-filled devotion. They were of one mind, in this regard: it was not beautiful to die for another. 

Dorothea took the book from Edelgard’s hands easily, holding the book with one hand and resting the other against Edelgard’s back and side to check if Edelgard winced. Her face didn’t move, but her back seized at the touch and her breath caught, then became shallow. Dorothea looked at the page Edelgard had marked and said, “What’s this? ‘Seraphim?’” 

“Oh. Yes. It’ll be useful if we encounter any more of those beasts.” Edelgard flipped the pages back. “For my purposes, it seemed more practical than Physic. Would you mind looking at Hubert’s arm? I’d like someone to review my work.”

She gave Hubert a cursory glance. Why even bother, an annoyed part of her wanted to know. Although Edelgard struggled with the theory of Faith, when she cast white magic, she never failed to get the result she wanted. “His arm looks fine. Will you let me check you?” 

“My injuries are not so troublesome that I can’t wait for Manuela.”

“Edie, you know how dangerous broken ribs can be. You might puncture a lung before we get back. Hubie, what do you think?” 

She expected Hubert to join her side, but instead he stared at her through his terrible, fluffy hair, and said to Edelgard, “We could blindfold her.” 

“We are _not_ that intimate yet.” She looked to Edelgard, who was seriously considering Hubert’s suggestion with a look of, ‘That seems all right with me’ instead of the rightful, ‘Who would even think to say that?’ She took Edelgard’s hands and rubbed her thumb over her fingers. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. Let me help you. As your friend.” 

She thought Edelgard would make her put on the blindfold, anyway, or send her away. Instead, Edelgard looked at their hands and said, “Hubert, stand by the entrance.” 

“Yes, Lady Edelgard,” he said. He unfastened the cape from Edelgard’s armor, his fingers working nimbly at the ties and attachments. When he was done, he put it over his shoulders, since he only had his undershirt on, and left. 

Edelgard was a different person when he was gone. It didn’t make her more friendly or any sweeter, nor did it change the number of absurd proclamations she was prone to delivering without warning. It was more like she let the normal person, the one capable of making jokes and blowing off her duties in favor of seeking out fun, peek through. Alone, Edelgard liked to flirt, in her own way, like she was gently amused by the prospect of what Dorothea had to offer. Dorothea appreciated the distance she kept. It was no fun when her partner wanted it too much or held her in contempt for trying, and this way, there was always the frisson of the possible.

“I’ve had a few vulneraries, so I’m almost certain my ribs are no longer broken,” Edelgard said, pulling her hair out of the way. “Still, it’s uncomfortable, and the ones Hubert buys have that rotten egg aftertaste.” 

“They’re also expensive. You’ll empty his coffers trying to treat yourself. And me—all I ask for is some of your time.”

“How kind of you to offer. You’re a good friend and citizen, Dorothea.” 

Dorothea, helping Edelgard out of her armor, had to suppress a laugh. “I can’t imagine what your idea of sweet talk is like. ‘You make a fine lover, but more importantly, you understand your civic duty.’” 

“You make a mockery of Hubert when you sound like that!” 

“Is it? You two sound so similar sometimes, always so serious and operatic. How would you put it?” 

Edelgard met her eyes with deathly seriousness. “Starting today, your civic duty will be to make love to me.” 

Dorothea’s fingertips and palms grew hot, but she managed to laugh as though she wasn’t imagining putting her lips to Edelgard’s bare throat. “You wouldn’t be doing the lovemaking?” 

“Would it not be a reciprocal making of love as opposed to something one inflicts upon another?” she said, a light blush on her cheeks, but her dignity remarkably intact otherwise. “Am I wrong? Very well. ‘Your civic duty will be to make love with me.’ How’s that?” 

“Perfect. Your lucky citizen is in a state of full arousal.” 

Dorothea didn’t ask her to remove her clothes, more to protect her ribs than her modesty. She unbuttoned Edelgard’s shirt. She was wearing a chemise underneath and stiffened when Dorothea’s fingers lifted the bottom away from her skin. Dorothea froze in place. 

“We’re getting pretty intimate right now, aren’t we?” Dorothea said. 

“Dorothea, I need to warn you. People tend to become upset when they see me.” 

“If you want, I can heal you through your clothes,” she said. “But honestly, I’m just trying to see what you look like topless.” 

“Naturally!” Edelgard said, shaking her head. How flattering: she liked the idea of Dorothea trying to sneak a peek. She gave it some thought and said, “Look if you must. I only ask that you don’t gawk. I’ve been told the damage is extensive.”

There were four bruises on her right side, deep purple, almost black at the center. The vulneraries had done their work, turning the bruises dark green and yellow at the edges. That was fine, about what she expected. What she didn’t were the long, puckered scars on her chest, two diagonals from her shoulders to her sternum, then extending down almost to her navel. A row of short horizontal scars clustered under her left breast, their intentions unknown. Someone had taken her apart, the way one might chop an animal for butchering. 

“Oh, I—” A feeling almost like nausea hit her and her eyes filled with tears. The chemise slid out of her fingers. 

“I know they’re displeasing to look at, but tears won’t change what happened,” Edelgard said, her face entirely stoic. She caught Dorothea’s tears with the side of her thumb. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know where they came from.” When Edelgard gave no response with words or in her expression, she said, “You must think I’m awful.” 

“I’m not unmoved, but please stop crying.”

It was not much, as far as comforting words went. If anything, had been an order: stop that. Not many tears had come out of her eyes, but she could sense that she had offended Edelgard. How could she not have with that terrible reaction? Hubert would not have dared to cry in front of Edelgard, and if he did, he would have walked straight out the room and dunked his face in a bowl of cold water. She made herself busy with healing, and when she finished, she turned her face up, not entirely able to offer a smile. 

“You’re not used to people crying for you, are you?” Dorothea said. 

“No one has ever accomplished anything through tears alone. If regrets could make an empire, I would let myself have them.” She dried Dorothea’s cheeks with the back of her finger. “I have no reassuring things to say. All I can offer is my strength. When the time comes for me to be emperor, I won’t let anything hold me back, not the past, not anyone’s tears, not even the goddess, if it comes to that. Will you be there to see it?” 

The pressure of Edelgard’s hand resting on her face kept her from turning her gaze away. 

“Of course I’ll be there for you,” she said. 

Edelgard’s hand slipped from Dorothea’s cheek to her chin. Her thumb, tear-salted, rested on Dorothea’s lower lip. Dorothea lowered her head, turned it, then stopped. She didn’t know what came over her: she had been about to kiss Edelgard. It’d be awkward to pull away now. She’d stay in close for another second and let their breaths mingle, and then they’d laugh about it and joke about kissing—Edelgard’s fingers curled on her cheek. 

Edelgard pressed an imperial kiss to the side of her mouth like they were two dukes greeting each other. Dorothea jerked away, rigid with shock. Her first thought was that it had to be some kind of mistake, a total misapprehension. Adrestian nobles were a tightly wound bunch, but perhaps, in the palaces, there was a secret custom of kissing servants for doing well. Or Edelgard had fallen onto her cheek—complete accident. Or it was revenge, a way to pay Dorothea back for embarrassing her. She felt, suddenly, exposed and humiliated, just seconds away from being turned out with a laugh. 

“I’m sorry, I only meant to thank you,” Edelgard said, growing flustered. “I should have given you a different token of my appreciation.” 

“Edie, you don’t thank people by kissing them like you’re bestowing a hundred heads of cattle. You need more passion, or you need to use your _words_ , if you’re capable of finding them.” It was the sharpest she had ever been with Edelgard, and she was glad to see Edelgard flinch. 

Edelgard drew herself up to her full height, which was genuinely imposing when she wasn’t directly in front of Dorothea, who stood a fair bit over her, and obviously trying to recover from a misstep. “As I said, I wanted to show you my gratitude—and I wanted to give you something of me that wasn’t my weakness. Is that acceptable? Would I be wrong if I asked to try again?” 

“At least you’re honest. Try, then,” she said, although she thought she was too off-balance to enjoy it. She’d take the kiss to tease Edelgard with it later: Remember that time… She knew Edelgard would hate the reminder, just as Dorothea disliked being lunged at. Edelgard was lucky Dorothea was willing to forgive her. 

Edelgard moved in, this time turning her head and catching Dorothea full on the mouth. It was not, despite Edelgard’s cautious approach, an apologetic kiss. Heed me, the kiss said; although underneath that was something that felt suspiciously like, I have no idea what happens after this. Once she knew Edelgard meant it to be an actual kiss, with the tip of her tongue on Dorothea’s lower lip and everything, instinct kicked in. If it was real, then she could let herself get into it. She’d enjoy getting into it, even: Edelgard kept her lips smooth and her hair lightly perfumed to hide the smell of the battlefield, and of course, she was a pretty thing to look at. Who hadn’t imagined kissing her? Dorothea ran the back of her fingers along Edelgard’s throat and collarbone, then, when Edelgard didn’t pull away, pushed her hand under the collar of that fine, silk chemise to grab at bare skin. Edelgard made a low noise into Dorothea’s lips, and that was how Dorothea preferred people to behave when they were trying to put their tongues in her mouth. She wanted them obedient and about to surrender; and the longer the kiss went on, the more control Edelgard gave up, letting Dorothea position her head the way she liked it and allowing Dorothea to run her nails on her shoulders and the back of her neck. 

Her compliance made Dorothea both guilty and hungry. The guilt was alleviated by how quickly Edelgard picked up new skills and tricks. Clearly, she was willing. She kissed like she was cramming for a test and Dorothea was her tutor: mirroring what Dorothea did, first with effort, then with more confidence. Given time, she’d be a monster, too good to ignore. If only Edelgard was a normal suitor. She wouldn’t spread rumors about Dorothea afterwards, or throw coins at her after they finished, or, sloppy and besotted with her after a date or a night in bed, claim to be in love; then, coming to her senses, disappear. 

She made herself let go, then, returning her hands back to her sides and breaking the seal of their mouths. She was gratified by Edelgard’s hot breath, the way her nose bumped against Dorothea’s cheek, plainly intending to resume. Dorothea would’ve been happy to keep going, but she knew to never give too much the first time around. 

“I’ve been thanked enough,” Dorothea said gently. 

“I see.” Edelgard rubbed at the corner of her mouth to wipe at the spit. She didn’t look any neater: her mouth was swollen and her face red with exertion. “I got carried away.” 

“You did. I think you must like me, Edie.” 

“I might,” Edelgard said, so lightly that the words almost didn’t register. Dorothea could never tell if she felt anything when she said these things, or if it was the same as her going on about dismantling the nobility, something they both wanted but would probably never see happen. “I should call Hubert back in. He’s bound to be fretting.” 

When they were decent, Edelgard walked her to the tent flap. Hubert and Ferdinand were talking outside, and they stopped abruptly when Edelgard stepped out. 

“I knew it!” Ferdinand said. “You took damage during the fight, too. Were her wounds grievous, Dorothea? Did she break all her ribs? I myself only broke an arm and lost three pints of blood in service to the Church.” 

“Ferdie, leave her alone. We’re all tired,” Dorothea said. She didn’t want anyone talking about blood now. “Edie, I’ll see you again soon if you’re in the mood for thanksgiving.”

“Wouldn’t that be interesting,” Edelgard said. “Should I let you know so you can clear your schedule?” 

“They don’t matter.” It would’ve been a perfect time to prompt Edelgard, in some small way, to go for the good night kiss, but Ferdinand and Hubert were right there. 

“It must’ve been grisly,” Ferdinand said, with both awe and excitement. “Edelgard, I’ve brought with me a summary of Montcriff’s _Applications of Shield_ —” 

Dorothea grabbed onto his arm and marched him back to their tent. “What were you even talking about with Hubie?” 

“I was merely showing concern for his well-being. I offered the shirt off my back, as a true no…” He coughed. “As a true rival should, and he refused, saying he hates my cologne! That was when I knew he had to be hiding something. He’s infuriating, is he not?” 

Dorothea looked over her shoulder. Hubert was putting the cape back over Edelgard’s shoulders. The two of them were talking with their faces oddly close together. Intimate, cool, and intimidating, they formed a perfect closed circuit. 

“They are,” she said.

#

Every time Dorothea went looking for Edelgard, someone would tell her that Edelgard had business with a Baron or Duke so-and-so in town on pilgrimage, or she was with the professor, or she had to tend to Monica, still recovering from her year-long kidnapping. 

She changed her training hours in hopes of catching Edelgard in the early mornings. She’d head to the weapons training area first, usually finding Shamir or one of the other Knights of Seiros, or Felix or Dedue. Then she’d make her way to the magical training fields. She never did get Edelgard, though she ran into Hubert regularly. He was always finishing his training as Dorothea began hers. She didn’t leave her room until the bells rang for the prime liturgy, which meant Hubert had to be training during the lauds, or even earlier. He annihilated training grounds A and B, which meant she had to walk to the other side of the court and use the other set.

“I never see you or Edie around these days,” she said one day before he could slink away. “What could you be doing that keeps you away so long?” 

“If you wish to speak to Her Highness, I will relay the message. Excuse me.”

“But I want to talk to _you_ ,” she said, making sure to slide her arm into his and turning him back around before he could run away. “Besides, you owe me. You didn’t need to destroy both of the closest training grounds when it’s so cold in the mornings. Where did you even learn that slimy magic?”

“If Lady Edelgard wishes to see you, then she will make the time,” he said, sidestepping her question altogether. “Has it occurred to you that she must have better things to do than pursue trifling dalliances?” 

“It has,” Dorothea said. She let go of him. Her good mood was gone. “You really know how to cut to the point, don’t you.” 

“You aren’t the type who values false pretenses.” 

“I’m not the type who appreciates being badly handled, either. Goodbye, Hubert.” 

She heard him say, “Oh, for…” as she left. She hoped he might follow her, answer some of her questions about Edelgard. When she turned around, no one was there. 

These days, her training mostly consisted of blasting training dummies to ashes at further and further distances or getting a list of different ways to maim a dummy. Sagittae to the left arm. Sagittae to the right hand. Sagittae to the side of the neck. Thoron to the dummy behind Sagittae Dummy D. She kept track of her progress in the same way everyone in the Black Eagles did: a little notebook carried around in their uniform, each page divided into grids with goals, tips, and spaces for notes. Today: zero misses at five meters, overall accuracy up to eighty-five percent, range increased by two meters at fifty-three percent accuracy. 

Her days tinkering with Faith were over. After Physic, the professor decided that would be enough. The more advanced support spells, like Ward or Silence or Restore, would take too long to go from theory in the classroom to usable on the battlefield. She didn’t do well using white magic to attack, and when she practiced teleporting in the workbooks, the spells were littered with stupid mistakes, making Warp and Rescue too risky. Healing people was easy enough for her, but they didn’t need her to learn Fortify or the other advanced heals. Dorothea’s talents were no longer exclusive. Bernadetta, Ferdinand, the professor, and Petra had Heal in their arsenal as well. 

She understood the professor’s reasoning, just as she understood why Manuela gently dissuaded her from attending her high-level white magic seminars, but it was hard not to feel bitter. She had wanted to learn. 

The professor had been a mercenary before they joined the monastery, and though there weren’t many signs of their past life, Dorothea thought she could see some part of it in how Dorothea’s rapid pace through the black magic manual delighted them. They’d smile, tight and small, when Dorothea blasted something from faraway with especial force. Good, that smile meant.


	3. civics (ii)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It’s a night for romance or more than that if you want to try it." 
> 
> Edelgard gives it a try.

A few days later, still smarting over Hubert’s words, Dorothea remembered something: if she had a complaint about her education, she ought to approach her house leader. She spent another few hours debating whether it’d be worth bothering Edelgard over something so trivial before deciding to go for it. Why not. She was already waking up early to train. 

Instead of staying in bed for an extra few minutes after waking up, she went to Edelgard’s room and knocked on the door. Edelgard greeted her almost instantly. She was in training clothes, the collar of her tunic damp with sweat, and had an assortment of freshly cleaned axes on her desk. No wonder Dorothea never ran into her in the mornings. Somehow, at the earliest hour of dawn, Edelgard had already finished her morning training. 

“It’s rare to see anyone awake at this hour,” Edelgard said. “What’s wrong?” 

“It’s—well, it’s not nothing, but it’s not important, either,” Dorothea said. “Are you busy? I’d like to talk to you about something.” 

“I only have a few minutes. Let me change and walk with me to the stables. I have business in town.” Edelgard hesitated, then said, “You can come in, if you’d like. It’ll be easier to talk without a door in the way.” 

It was the first time Dorothea had been in Edelgard’s room. All of the furniture was the same as the others: the desk, the dresser, and so on. Her bed was the same size as Dorothea’s, but the comforters looked heavier and warmer, and the pillows were firm and overfull with feathers. It was the first truly princess-y thing of Edelgard’s she had seen. Her other accessories, like Hubert, that ridiculous cravat, or her fluttering cape, spoke of her power. The blanket and the pillow were pure luxury. The blanket was almost certainly worth more than all of the gifts her suitors threw at her, and she likely would never be able to afford a pillow half as nice.

“I’ll keep my back to you,” Dorothea said without being asked. “So you really are that busy? You haven’t been avoiding me? You could have sent a letter.” 

“Dorothea, have you come to my room at sunrise to ask why I haven’t been courting you?” 

“There’s nothing wrong with teasing you a little,” Dorothea said. Privately, she was glad she was facing a wall so Edelgard couldn’t see her smiling. So she had been imagining things. Things weren’t ruined between them. Once she knew that, her moroseness over the professor’s lesson plans felt distant and far less pressing than before. “I’ve come to ask about why the professor’s not teaching me more Faith spells. Did they tell you anything?” 

“Do you object to your current course of study? I understand that you want to emulate Manuela, but your spell list fits your current role in our class. I don’t see a reason to change it. Let’s head out.” Dorothea turned around. Edelgard had just buttoned her uniform jacket and was now arranging her cravat around her neck. She took a cloak from her coat rack, a satchel for riding, and nodded to the door. They took off together down the empty hall.

“Manuela can cast magic to protect people. What do we use Reason magic for besides killing?” Dorothea said. 

“Killing is an instrument. Are you saying there’s no way to protect someone by killing another?” 

“That’s awful.” 

“Some futures can only be achieved by the sword. We don’t live in a time when we can make change by wishing for it. What future are you learning Reason for? Surely you wouldn’t need to learn black magic if you were only thinking of those houses and some moldy husband. I think you have some other future in mind.” 

“You still remember that silly thing I said?” Dorothea said. She felt her face go red. “Edie, I wish you hadn’t. It sounds like a—a stupid fantasy.” 

“There’s nothing stupid about it. I’d like to have one of those normal lives myself once my work is done. Normalcy will taste better if the world around it is not sagging with its own rot.” 

“When you say it like that, I almost believe you.” She looked over to Edelgard and, despite wishing she could stop herself, her eyes drifted to where she knew those awful scars were. She took Edelgard’s arm in hers—it wasn’t as though Edelgard was going to accept a hug—and said, “Come to think of it, I don’t think either of us know what ‘normal’ would mean.” 

“Dorothea, you had to do more than anyone in this house to be here. Anyone would admire that strength. Even if you regret the path the professor’s put you on, I’m glad you’re with us. I appreciate that you came to me with your troubles.” 

When she was intent, Edelgard’s stare could make her feel in danger of her student costume falling away, revealing the actor beneath: an orphan with a sweet, thin voice that would snap like a dried-up reed when she grew old, no use to anyone or any cause. Dorothea had to remind herself to pay less attention to her sense that she was shrinking and about to disappear and more to Edelgard’s actual words, the warmth in her voice, the open smile. They had reached a corner and stopped instead of going on. 

“You can come to me with… well, not that you’re the type to. But I want to know what you’re thinking, too.” Dorothea squeezed Edelgard’s cheek, first lightly, then caressed it when she didn’t flinch away. There was something about the way Edelgard turned her face to her hand and looked at her that made her think… She kissed Edelgard before she could doubt herself. The kiss she got in return was hungry and deep and filled her with a burning sense of triumph. “Why don’t you start by telling me you’ve been thinking of me?” 

“You sound like Sylvain,” Edelgard said sadly.

“Oh, that hurts.” 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say you’re a womanizing nuisance. I do miss you. As for troubles, I have too many to burden you with.”

“Let’s start small, then. Tell me one thing that’s bothering you.”

Edelgard’s brow furrowed. “I’ve been trying to persuade Caspar to write a letter to his father for me, but no matter how I ask, he says I’m meddling. Just because he’s the second son doesn’t mean he should use that as an excuse to avoid learning good governance altogether.” 

“Do you feel better now?” 

“To be honest, no. I still need that letter,” Edelgard said. Dorothea tapped Edelgard’s cheek until she looked up and kissed her again. She let Edelgard take command this time, as an apology for her uselessness. 

Some knights clanked down the hall behind them, and they resumed their walk to the stables. Dorothea held onto Edelgard’s arm the whole way. 

When they arrived at the stable, Edelgard said, “I have meetings in town, but I’ll be back in time for the morning lecture. If I’m late, please make sure the professor knows I’ve only been delayed. I’m not Linhardt, after all.” 

“You really are going to make it to class, aren’t you,” Dorothea said. When it came to making promises, Edelgard was the most serious person she knew. 

#

The next time she got more out of Edelgard than some bone-achingly early morning kisses was at the White Heron Ball. Like any glamorous lady, Dorothea made a late entrance. Edelgard and Claude were dancing to a modern Alliance number, with Edelgard leading, much to her evident displeasure. Dorothea felt a pang of jealousy watching the two of them go around the room. 

It took almost the rest of the ball for her to get near Edelgard. First, people kept trying to approach Dorothea for conversation; then Edelgard was constantly taken away on dances by Ferdinand or some other noble who felt the need to impress her. Two students took the trouble of attacking Sylvain for the usual reasons why people wanted to hurt him, and the entire Blue Lions house stormed the dance floor, Felix and Ingrid pulling Sylvain away so they could yell at him, Ashe and Dimitri trying to broker peace, Dedue standing directly in front of Dimitri to protect him and, by doing so, prevented anyone from understanding what the prince was saying. 

Edelgard took on a series of dances to avoid Ferdinand trying to challenge her to a duel of leading, and, out of pity, Dorothea took Ferdinand for a spin, too. Annoyingly, he was an excellent dance partner. What a pity about the conversation. 

Bernadetta snuck in for the food and Dorothea stole a few minutes with her, feeding her tiny sandwiches behind a column. Petra was a wonderful dancer, too, and soon had a circle of people learning Brigid folk dance from her. Dorothea joined that, too. When she needed to take a break for air, she’d look around the ballroom, hoping for a flash of Edelgard’s red cape. 

By the time they were both free, Hubert had arrived. For once, Dorothea was glad he was there. Making her approach was much easier with him scattering people with his glare. 

“There you are,” Edelgard said, momentarily looking cheery. Her hair, usually neat, was flattened down to her forehead with sweat and her ribbons were crooked. “You’ve been busy all night—” just as Dorothea said, “I haven’t been able to get a hold of you—”

Dorothea held her hand out and said, “Would you like a dance?” 

“Have some pity for the weary, Dorothea! I was just about to head out. Will you join me?” 

“I’d love to. But not even for one dance? Not even,” she said, taking hold of Edelgard’s hand and ignoring Hubert’s disapproving look, “one turn around the room? Oh, fine. I’ll let you go.” It was true that Edelgard hadn’t stepped off the dance floor since Dorothea arrived hours ago. Still, she was disappointed. It wasn’t as though there would be another opportunity in the next year. “Where were we? You were inviting me back to your room? It’s a night for romance or more than that if you want to try it. I haven’t seen you at a reasonable hour in a long time.” 

Edelgard didn’t recoil from the jibe, but she did look wistful. “I’m flattered you think of me so. Dorothea, I can’t—I don’t know if I’ll be able to give you what you’re looking for.” 

“I remember. You can’t give anything but your strength. I don’t need to marry you to have some fun.” She stroked Edelgard’s face with the back of her fingers and watched, fascinated, as Edelgard turned her cheek to her hand. That was better than some squire proposing to her on the spot. She steered Edelgard behind a column and kissed her. Edelgard planted her hand between Dorothea’s shoulder blades, bringing them close. She grabbed the back of Dorothea’s thigh. 

“I’m leaving,” Hubert said. 

They went to Edelgard’s room. She didn’t get all of Edelgard’s clothes off that night, but she did get Edelgard out of her jacket and shorts. Her shirt was unbuttoned, exposing her chemise, and her delicate cravat had been crumpled when Dorothea pulled her in for a kiss. She let Edelgard stay on top and removed her boots and skirt and jacket and shirt and was pleased when Edelgard’s kisses grew shorter so she could pull away and rake her eyes across Dorothea’s body.

“You _like_ looking, don’t you?” Dorothea said. “Now I know why you’re always sparring with Petra and Ferdie.”

“Dorothea, I forbid mention of ‘I am Ferdinand von Aegir’ in this bed again,” she said. “And it’s natural to enjoy looking, is it not? I don’t see the point in mentioning it so pointedly.”

“When you’re in bed with someone, it’s fun to have weaknesses. You’re going to love it, I promise.” She put her hands on Edelgard’s shoulders. She wouldn’t make an ass of herself again. “Tell me where I can touch you,” she said. 

It wasn’t long until Edelgard had her forearms on either side of Dorothea’s head as she ground her wet slit against Dorothea’s upper thigh, so close to her own center. The motions of her hip against Dorothea’s skin were fluid, smooth, and rhythmic, like getting fucked, but Dorothea was the one who had control over the kiss, sliding her tongue in and out of Edelgard’s mouth in time with the shared motions of their hips, and she had both of Edelgard’s nipples in her fingers, twisting them tighter and tighter. For some reason, she expected Edelgard to be like a snooty statue, stoic and silent. Instead, she was defenseless, showing everything: a blunt, “Ugh, enough,” when Dorothea put her mouth to the underside of her chin, completely unmoved by the sensation; biting her lip and arching her back when something felt good; flushing bright and vibrant all the way down to her collarbones when Dorothea kissed her especially well. 

“You’re close, aren’t you?” Dorothea said when Edelgard turned her face away to suck in long gasps air. “I want to see you come. Next time, I hope you’ll let me—” She almost lost her nerve when Edelgard tightened her thighs around her leg. “Next time, I’ll have you spread your legs for me so I can see your pussy when you come. I’d have you on your back, holding your knees open with your hands. That’d be perfect. Will that be okay?”

“Dorothea, I—what’s gotten into you?” she said, her expression at once pained and captivated. She was panting and out of breath and close, so close. Dorothea took one hand off her breast and brought it between their bodies. Edelgard’s tights were still on, but she could feel the shape and heat of her sex through them. When her fingers found her clit, Edelgard’s hips drove into her hand. Her tights, already damp on Dorothea’s skin, grew wet. 

“I love making you speechless,” she said, meaning for it to come off as a confident declaration. Instead, she sounded smitten. Dorothea put her mouth against Edelgard’s cheek and kissed her way back to her lips and redoubled her efforts. She wanted Edelgard to be breathless and dizzy when she came. 

Edelgard came against her, her whole body going tight around Dorothea’s and a shout held between her teeth. Her hips rocked against Dorothea's hand, pushing herself further and further, until her knees gave out. She collapsed half on top of Dorothea, knees splayed out and chin on the mattress. Everything about her looked mussed: her gaze unfocused, her lips indented by teeth, face blotchy. Dorothea was about to pull her into another kiss when Edelgard’s hand found her face and stroked it, her thumb moving along the planes of her cheeks onto her nose. Her focus had returned, and with it, the uncomfortable feeling of being inspected. 

“What are you doing?” Dorothea said. 

“Admiring you.” This time, when they kissed, Edelgard was firmly in control. It was what she preferred, Dorothea suspected, but she made concessions for Dorothea’s sake. “Please, tell me how I can make you feel good.” 

Even though the heat in her cunt was urgent, it was matched by a horrifying realization that if Edelgard touched her, there was a real chance that she’d cry. If she had sense, she’d go back to her room and finish herself off there. 

“Kiss me first,” she said. She figured she could tell Edelgard that she always cried when she came, if it came to that. While they were kissing, she worked her panties off, and Edelgard cast her gloves aside. Her eyes were dark and her breath suddenly shallow. It was always gratifying to see the effect she had on others, but she’d rather have more tangible proof. Dorothea guided Edelgard’s hand to her inner thighs. 

Edelgard was, as always, quick to learn. Soon she was circling Dorothea’s clit with her thumb while her fingers probed and tested her entrance. Her other hand ran along the inside of her thighs and the crease of her ass and leg. It really was the same gesture she used on the horses, Dorothea had seen it, but it felt too good for her to want it to stop. She slid two fingers into Dorothea with ease, and after some guidance, found a good, steady rhythm. 

“I see what you mean about wanting to have me on my back,” Edelgard said. “It’s a beautiful view.”

“If you like what you see, then take more,” Dorothea said, pushing back against Edelgard’s hand. A third finger and the tease of Edelgard’s thumb along her outer rim had her eyes watering. She wanted that stupid hand all the way inside her. She wanted, so badly, to come on Edelgard’s face. Dorothea brought her hand between their bodies and took over rubbing her clit. She was getting greedy and didn’t want to wait. 

She was aware of her mouth hanging open, of Edelgard’s fingers reaching deeper, of ugly, uncultivated noises coming out of her. Edelgard brought Dorothea’s free hand, the one clutching the sheets like she was trying to rip them, to her hair and said, “Feel free.” Dorothea gave her hair an experimental tug, and Edelgard arched into Dorothea, pushing her fingers further in. Dorothea pulled harder, and Edelgard whimpered her name. That was apparently it for Dorothea: her walls went tight and she buried her face into the side of Edelgard’s head and came. Edelgard, indefatigable, shifted her rhythm. Slower but with more of her weight behind it. Dorothea had stopped touching herself, and Edelgard’s thumb resumed its circles, concentrating on the smooth underside of Dorothea’s clit. Her leg pinned Dorothea’s wide open, and her head and shoulders were heavy against her chest as she kissed Dorothea’s nipple through her bra. Dorothea felt as though she might never get up, that she’d die, captured by the physical weight and heat of Edelgard’s body. 

“Don’t stop yet,” she said when Edelgard’s fingers slid out of her. “Please, I need—” She hated this part of sex, when she started talking about need, when her thighs flexed around whatever was between them in some effort to entrap and ensnare. “I’m just insatiable, sometimes. I can’t help it, I can’t.” 

“Ssh,” Edelgard said. “Let me switch hands.” 

She parted Dorothea’s thighs with an ease that made Dorothea’s clit throb. Fuck. She pushed into Dorothea with her other hand. The angle was slightly different, but the strength of her fingers more present and the friction perfect. 

“I want you to push—” She held Edelgard’s wrist and showed her: rotate like this, put strength _here_ , and ground her hips into Edelgard’s hand to demonstrate. Edelgard’s breath hitched. She sounded like she was right on the edge of coming again, just from watching. She did as Dorothea asked, moving her fingers only enough to relocate the pressure until she found the spot that made Dorothea’s legs kick out. Once she had the spot, she was relentless, tapping her fingers against it with greater speed, keeping a fast pace on Dorothea’s clit, and didn’t stop until Dorothea’s heels slipped on the sheets and her cunt clenched tight and hard around the fingers in her. 

She could feel tears coming out of her right eye, then her left, as Edelgard removed her fingers. Edelgard wiped the few tears that had spilled onto Dorothea’s cheek with the sheets without any sign of alarm or concern. She took it to be a compliment. 

“Did I do well?” she said. 

“I’m not grading you right now,” Dorothea said, rearranging herself on the bed so they could be side-by-side more comfortably. “I’m not the professor. And in case you haven’t noticed, someone’s worn me out.” 

“I was _not_ asking for a grade,” she said, but she looked like she was now considering the question seriously. She wiped her hand on her sheets and smoothed Dorothea’s hair back into place. “Dorothea, thank you. You’re beautiful. I mean it.” 

“You’re sweet to say that,” Dorothea said. She heard those words all the time, and sometimes even in the same awe-struck tone as Edelgard. Mere words had lost their ability to impress. “I have a feeling you’re still raring to go. What part of me do you want?” 

“I don’t, I’m not…” She looked almost angry to be asked, as though she suspected a trick. Then she bent down to kiss Dorothea’s breasts. She stayed there for a while, letting Dorothea pull her hair to guide her where she wanted, until someone knocked on the door. 

“It’s just Hubert,” Edelgard said. “Yes?” 

“Far be it from me to dictate how you spend your free time, but I recommend resting at some point.” 

“Thank you for your recommendation. Good night.” She leaned over Dorothea again, but the sound of Hubert’s voice and the realization that Hubert was in the room next to theirs, on the other side of the very wall Edelgard’s bed was pushed up against, had a chilling effect on Dorothea. 

“I’m going to go!” Dorothea said. 

“You don’t want to stay?” Although her voice was just as commanding as ever, the effect was lessened by the fact that she was sprawled out on her bed with come staining her chemise and arousal soaked through the crotch of her tights. Dorothea ruffled her hair. Oops: Edelgard hadn’t liked that at all. 

“I feel awful keeping Hubie up,” she said. “Thank you for being with me. You made me feel special.” Again, the horrifying feeling of being near tears. She kissed Edelgard’s forehead and said, “Good night! Come by my room any time.” 

#

The strange part was, the world changed enough to grant Dorothea’s wish. Jeralt was dead and no one knew when the Flame Emperor might strike again. After the professor recovered from their grieving, the professor doubled their training schedules, assigning so much work that even Edelgard had to stay in the monastery all day. At night, in the library or the training grounds or hiding from the professor’s aggressive stare—why aren’t you working?—Dorothea would wait for Edelgard to find for her so they could go back to her room. 

The only real problem with their arrangement was Hubert. Edelgard warned her that she and Hubert had a nightly fifteen-minute debrief, and Dorothea said she was okay with the two of them holding the meetings while she was there if it meant she could spend more time with Edelgard. To her horror, they did just that, even if Edelgard was only half-dressed and even if Dorothea had to stay under the covers the whole time while Hubert listed agenda items with his back to them. He was a frequent enough visitor that, after the fifth time, he stopped even pretending to bother with the courtesy of turning to face the wall. Edelgard had to remind him to do so. 

When there wasn’t anything interesting in the night’s report, Hubert would finish his recitation of the day’s letters with a dry remark, and the two of them would go straight to saying morbid and terrible things to each other for the rest of their meeting. They were always talking about the blood of the people, the blood of the army, the blood of Edelgard’s enemies. It was like a compulsion for them. No mentions of the things Dorothea would ask for if she were emperor: paintings to buy, buildings to erect, frivolous clothing tailored to their form. The only parts of power they were infatuated with was death. 

“You’re not the emperor yet,” Dorothea said, tugging at Edelgard’s earlobe to get her attention away from Hubert, still lurking in the corner. “Don’t you think you should save your scheming for after you take the throne? Hmm?”

It never failed to annoy her how Hubert, with his face to the wall, could command so much of Edelgard’s attention. She knew there was no real desire on Edelgard’s part. Hubert was her man, her most loyal vassal, her most faithful instrument of power. If Dorothea had a Hubert, she, too, would find it hard to ignore. Dorothea sat up and cradled Edelgard’s head in her hands, her palms resting at the base of Edelgard’s neck and her thumbs at the back of her ears, tilted Edelgard’s head up and down—she knew Edelgard didn’t like being played with this way, but Edelgard tolerated it. Smiled, even, like a circus bear allowing its handler to make a fool of it, before shaking her head free. 

“I have to finish some letters,” Edelgard said. She got out of Dorothea’s bed and pulled her shorts over her ripped tights and threw her jacket and cape back on and left the room with Hubert at her side. There was no real reason to be upset. They didn’t owe each other more than they were currently giving, and Edelgard was giving her as much time as she could fit in. If anything, Dorothea should feel guilty for taking advantage of Edelgard so often—not just because of how, without fail, she would ruin some article of Edelgard’s clothing, but because she knew someday she’d ask Edelgard for a favor using their former intimacy as leverage. She had done so before and didn’t regret it, exactly, but now that she was older, she knew she hadn’t been a master seductress, nimbly manipulating men and women to want her just enough to give her things but not enough to trap or kill her or demand she do something beyond her limits. She had been lucky then, just as she was lucky now. 


	4. sharp as sight can bear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Flame Emperor unmasked.

War arrived. 

#

Edelgard gave everyone some time to go home and get their affairs in order before returning to Garreg Mach at the end of the month. Petra and Lysithea were sent to Hyrm to purchase as many wyverns as possible before news of Edelgard’s conquest made it to the coasts. Bernadetta was allowed to stay at the monastery, where she was to grow magically fortified vegetables. They were all to be put on a new diet. Ferdinand was put in charge of the monastery in their absence, a task he accepted with a gratitude that bordered on desperation. It didn’t suit him, and Dorothea felt sorry for him, even if what happened to him was what she fantasized would happen to all nobles. Seeing it play out on Ferdinand felt crueler than she expected. 

“I’ll lead her well!” he said. “When you come back, no one will ever be able to tell that dragon was here.” 

“There’s no point promising that. I won’t be gone long enough for you to put in the work. I’d rather you create a plan for how we’ll house and train our incoming troops,” the emperor said without inflection. “Without the professor at hand, I’m in need of good advice. Speaking of them, the search…” 

Ferdinand’s shoulders lost their breadth. 

“We’re doing our best,” he said. 

Edelgard and Hubert had plans to travel back to Enbarr to attend to official business. Dorothea decided to go with them. It wasn’t as though she had official business to sort out. As an orphan, she had no house that was about to be dissolved, she had no family, and she had no station to lose, only to gain. And, selfishly, she was desperate to talk with Edelgard. Aside from some brief, private words, Edelgard had disappeared from Dorothea’s life. 

She expected Hubert to tell her to stay at the monastery, but he assigned her battalion to Hanneman and distributed her duties to some of Edelgard’s other lieutenants and captains, and that was it. She was free to go. She was still wanted. 

They traveled light, not taking much more than food, weapons, and plain armor taken from the monastery’s spare stock. Edelgard wore a cloak, though a sensible brown one rather than anything flashier; Hubert went in black, and Dorothea in green. Their horses were not their own, either: Hubert’s ominous, almost self-parodic black steed and Edelgard’s bay mare were too well-known around the city. Members of Ladislava’s cavalry unit had gone on ahead to scout the roads and paths and would meet them by a secret entrance to the palace. They planned to enter undercover and through a back route to avoid potential assassins. From what Dorothea had heard, Edelgard was already a popular emperor. Ionius had never been the same since the deaths of his children. He was thought to be feeble, impotent, and constantly ill. But what did she know about politics? 

More than ever, she felt like an outsider. Edelgard and Hubert must have had so many conversations about assassinations and taking people hostage with the thinnest of pretenses, and she had never suspected the truth. No wonder Edelgard was so busy: planning a coup, swanning around as the Flame Emperor, and playing a student at the academy didn’t leave much time for other things. Unveiled and with the full force of her ambitions brought forward, Edelgard looked much the same in Dorothea’s eyes as before, every bit as brilliant and intelligent and hardworking—only now she seemed, despite the heat of her body, bloodless. All those times they had been together, Edelgard had been thinking of wars and executions. She hadn’t let her façade slip once. 

Dorothea’s lack of riding skills was catching up with her. They went off the highway and through the dense woods, terrain she was hardly experienced with. Her horse, a chestnut mare, was skittish, and she knew it was her fault: she kept bashing the poor girl into saplings and was not skilled enough to steer her away from sudden dips in the ground without yanking hard at the reins. Edelgard and Hubert kept slowing down to help her.

Finally, Hubert said, “Enough of this. You’ll ride with me. Her Majesty will guide your horse. You’ll be assigned a riding tutor when we arrive at Enbarr.” 

“How gallant of you, Hubie,” she said. Her legs were a mess from the ride and from a twisted knee she healed with vulneraries during the march on Garreg Mach. She couldn’t exactly cast Heal on herself, and Linhardt had been swamped with requests. She had to be helped onto Hubert’s horse. It wasn’t Hubert’s, but it might as well have been with how tall and lean it was. Edelgard took the reins of Dorothea’s mare and they continued on. 

#

They stopped at a safehouse in the country, maintained by a pair of former Imperial Army soldiers in retirement, and were allowed to stay in the barn for the night. It was well-fortified for a barn, with barred doors and a secret passageway hidden under some hay bales; apparently this was a regular stop for Edelgard’s commanders as they moved between Enbarr and the monastery. Hubert and Edelgard moved around some of the remaining hay bales and supplies to provide some additional fortification and secured the exit and entrance. 

Dorothea had been in charge of making a comfortable spot for them to sleep. She found enough clean straw for a bed and put their bed rolls on it, scattered more straw on top, and tossed a pair of blankets over both. They’d smell like the horses, but they’d be warm. She thought her legs were doing all right for such a long day of riding, but when she squatted down to spread the straw around, she couldn’t get back up and fell over onto her side. She got herself back up before anyone saw, but her physical exhaustion made her want to throw herself onto the floor and sink into the cold dirt. 

When Edelgard and Hubert were done, Hubert went to the house to talk with the soldiers. Edelgard went to her. 

“It’s another two days to Enbarr on this route,” Edelgard said. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?” 

“Oh, I’ll be all right, Your Majesty.”

“‘Your Majesty?’ What happened to Edie, or even Edelgard?” she said. “There’s no need to distance yourself like that. Tell me how you’re really doing.” 

“I can’t believe you nobles can ride horses all day. How do you do it?” She meant to sound light and uncomplaining, but instead she sounded just as whiny and sore as she feared. It was hard to sound normal around Edelgard. They hadn’t been intimate in a few weeks. A few weeks before the raid on the Holy Tomb, Edelgard had started blowing off training sessions, much to the professor’s ire, and then… well, she unmasked herself, declared war on the church, and so on. It was like a gate had come down. All of Dorothea’s school days were on one side, and all that would come next, the war and whatever would come after—so far, all she could think of was more war—were on the other, and there was no going between them. 

“Sit down. I’ll heal you.” 

“Edie—”

“There’s no shame in being helped,” she said, hypocritically, as though Dorothea hadn’t had to chase her down plenty of times for treatment. She wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to be healed, and she missed Edelgard’s hands on her. 

She helped Dorothea get on the ground. Her brow furrowed in concentration. She chanted a few lines, shut her eyes, and waved her hand, and a moment later, the warmth of healing magic coursed through Dorothea’s entire body. Her legs pulsed and ached and felt like someone was trying to pop them off her; an old, vulnerary injury itched violently, and seconds later, felt better. 

“For someone who hates the church, you’ve always been good at Faith,” Dorothea said. “What’s your secret?” 

“Even if I hate it, I’ll use anything if it’s to my advantage. Allies, weapons, magic, any of it. Do you still keep the faith?” 

“I’ve never been much for it to begin with. Maybe that’s why I could never get the hang of it.” 

“I wonder.” Edelgard put her hand on Dorothea’s knee. Dorothea’s attention focused painfully on her face. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. I’d like to know if you want to leave the Strike Force and stay in Enbarr as a civilian. With the professor missing…” Edelgard visibly steeled herself from within at the mention of them. “I have no guarantee on victory.” 

“Are you kicking me out of the Strike Force? I don’t understand.” 

“I’m giving you a choice.” 

“I won’t leave your side unless you order me to stay in Enbarr. Are you ordering me?” Edelgard the Emperor stared back at her, refusing to give anything away. Fine. If Edelgard wanted to hide behind her station, then Dorothea would talk to her as a subject, not as a friend. “Then I’m staying. If I may make a request? I’d like for you to never try to dismiss me like that again.” 

Edelgard didn’t even seem to register the change in tone. She met Dorothea’s eyes and said, “So you’re saying you are willing to die for me, if you must?” 

She hated those words. She used to think Edelgard felt the same. 

“Yes, Edie,” she said. “I’ll die for you.” 

“If that’s your choice, I can’t stop you.” Edelgard’s gaze flicked down to the wood floor. She sighed impatiently. Dorothea felt Edelgard’s displeasure like a slap. If she had been Hubert, then Edelgard would have chided her or, if she was in the mood, talked about how they were probably going to die together in service to their shared dream. Edelgard would never have asked Petra, Bernadetta, or Caspar to die for her, so why was Dorothea the only one being tested? 

“I hope you know that I don’t go around swearing loyalty to people every day,” Dorothea said, trying to keep her voice light. “I’m basically declaring my love for you.”

“Don’t joke like that. I’d rather have someone follow me into this war because they share my convictions. As you know from the operas, love doesn’t command loyalty.” 

Dorothea had been joking about love, but to have it batted away so casually fractured something in her. She scoffed at first, then clicked her tongue, trying to expel the awful feeling inside her through her breath. “You’re cold to me sometimes. Do you know that?” 

“I won’t ask to be forgiven, only to be understood.” Edelgard kissed her, first on the forehead, then on the mouth, formally and with great care. Dorothea accepted it without trying to change its nature. 

# 

The two ex-soldiers brought them dinner in the barn. They didn’t seem to like Hubert much, but they tolerated him for a chance to fawn over Edelgard: how powerful she must be, how strong, how beautiful. She let them kiss her signet ring. 

“Fools,” Hubert said when they left. 

“If you want to kiss her hand, just ask her,” Dorothea said. “Edie, would you hold your hand out for Hubie?” 

“Must we?” Hubert said, taking Edelgard’s outstretched hand and kissing it. It was well-practiced and perfectly measured, and they both looked bored. He brought her hand to Dorothea. “Now it is your turn.” 

If anyone would call her bluff, it’d be Hubert. She kissed Edelgard’s hand, knowing full well that both Hubert and Edelgard were evaluating her and likely found her wanting. She couldn’t stop herself from looking up to see if Edelgard had been affected by her kiss. Edelgard averted her eyes right away and took her hand back. 

“Enough of that, you two,” she said. She rubbed the ring with her thumb, and Dorothea was pleased to see her ears turn red. 

They went to bed early. Their plan was to head out at dawn. Hubert took first watch, then Edelgard, then Dorothea. She understood the ordering: Hubert would set an additional bunch of magical wards, Edelgard never slept more than four hours at a time anyway, and Dorothea would prefer waking up early to staying up late. 

Halfway through her watch, she spotted a dark shape above the tree line. She was lucky there were no clouds; the moon was almost new and barely caught the light. 

She went back to the barn and shook Hubert awake, leaving one arm out in case he flailed with the knife he always went to bed with. He did no such thing: he sat up as though he hadn’t been resting at all. 

I saw something, she mouthed. When Edelgard stirred, they both told her to go back to sleep. They exchanged glances over Edelgard’s body. They were usually on the same side when it came to Edelgard’s well-being. He had been her teammate before and was then her strange, moody friend; in more recent days, he was her friend who had seen her half-naked far too often for either of their liking. Now they had a shared goal. How was it that Hubert put it? A same path. 

Dorothea took him outside. 

“What is it?” he said, looking at the trees. 

“Up there. You can’t see it?” 

“No, I can’t,” he said. “My eyesight is not as strong as yours when it comes to distance. Congratulations. Pegasus or wyvern?” 

It took her a moment to decide. “Wyvern.” 

“Color?” 

“My eyes aren’t _that_ good, Hubie.”

“All right.” He was thinking. Then he took out a spyglass from his pocket and looked through it. “The men Ladislava sent with us are with the cavalry. We are not near any of the Imperial patrols and we are too far in Empire territory for this to be someone from the Alliance making an incursion. Faerghus would not dare to invade by sky so early and favor pegasus riders.” 

“That’s good, isn’t it? That means they’re one of ours.”

“Not likely. Within the army, there are still those who would seek to stop Her Majesty from announcing her reign to the people. Even with Ferdinand’s disgraceful father and the rest of them put away or brought to heel, there are still two mad Hresvelgs ready to be put on the throne as puppets. Are they ascending or descending?” 

“They’re remaining steady.” Dorothea watched the bobbing dot blotting out the stars a while longer and said, “I can take them down from here. It’s just within my reach.” 

He made a noise that was both impressed and annoyed. “How close until you can guarantee it?” 

“A quarter of a mile. When they reach that point, there, it’ll be a kill for sure.” 

Hubert didn’t blink or look at her. He continued watching the top of the trees. “At your discretion.” 

Meteor was the last spell the professor had taught her. It gave her the longest range of any mage on the field, and she used it now to punch the small dot clear out of the air. The Meteor spell gave off a bright, blinding light, brighter than the stars. She didn’t even blink as she watched the wyvern and rider fall. 

“That will be useful in the future,” he said. 

“I know,” she said. She wished she had missed. It would have scared the rider away just as effectively as killing them, but she hadn’t thought to do so, and she was too good to not hit her target. Hubert, unexpectedly, took her cloak off her shoulders and gave her his. “What’s this? A token of your affection?”

“Her Majesty would prefer you to not be cold.” 

The inside of the collar had a fur trim. Was it really something he gave her because of Edelgard might want, or was that just an excuse of his? She ran her fingers against it, imagining it soft and tight around Hubert’s throat and neck. She knew Edelgard’s own cloak was a dense, heavy wool with a soft hand and a quilted lining. 

“Do you think Edie’s changed since she became emperor?” she said. 

“Yes,” he said, his voice fervent. “She was a fine princess, but as emperor, she is resplendent. The awe I feel has doubled—no, tripled. Do you not feel the same?” 

“Resplendent? You make her sound like a painting. I was talking about her personality, not her good looks.” 

“Hmm.” He was humoring her, not moving while she gathered her thoughts, even though it had to be cold for him. Their breaths curled white around their faces.

“I’m even more jealous of you now than before, if you can believe it,” she said. “I didn’t realize how close you really were until we fought Rhea. I thought Edie and I were breaking new ground in our relationship, but I wasn’t anywhere near where I thought I was. You’re the only one she’s close to now that the professor’s gone.” 

“Do you require assurance that you are Her Majesty’s only lover? I will answer any question you have about our physical relationship, if you have any concerns.” 

“I’m not worried about your physical relationship with her.” Their intimacy was guarded and exclusive and deeply tried, but not physical. It never would be, as far as Dorothea could tell, but there was no sense in saying so. She could sense Hubert trying to be kind and didn’t want to spurn his efforts. “She trusts you and confides in you. There’s nothing special about what she does with me. All I’ve done is seen her naked. She doesn’t even love me.” 

She watched Hubert consider the idea that Edelgard had not come out of the womb in full regalia and dismiss it. “You are a valued member of Her Majesty’s inner circle and her trusted friend. If you have no other news, then I’ll go back to sleep. Good night.” 

#

It took two extra days to get to Enbarr. They left as planned early in the morning to a silent, eerie woods. At noon, they discovered Ladislava’s scouts killed in the trees, their bodies torn apart by wyvern claws. In the skies, more Imperial wyvern riders and lords pursued them. By daylight, Hubert was more convinced that the wyverns were not their allies. Dorothea shot two more down. 

They traveled from waypoint to waypoint, sometimes spending hours standing still in ominous, tall patches of forests to avoid being seen. After two days of traveling like this, one of Ladislava’s men, a paladin, was waiting for them at a safehouse. The news was not good. Edelgard’s coronation had been a private ceremony; to ordinary people in Enbarr, Lord Ionius was still the Adrestian Emperor. She had left right away to invade Garreg Mach, and her most loyal generals and their forces were currently away from the city. The announcement had been made, but no public ceremony had been put on. The nobles in the southeastern and southern part of the city were gathering to make sure none would happen. Supposedly, they had no intentions of killing Edelgard, only capturing her and helping her see sense. Hubert’s face darkened when he heard the instigators’ names. 

“We should have eliminated them months ago,” he said. “You’re too soft.” 

“It was worth giving them a chance. We’ll make them regret rising against me.” 

Dorothea had tried to think of the Edelgard who could say such a thing as the real Edelgard, the true face of her academy friend, but she sounded exactly the same. She might as well have been talking about rearranging the seating chart at school. Yes, Edelgard had kept her secrets, but she hadn’t lied about who she was. The broader strokes, at least. 

The paladin, whose name was Verner, would accompany them. He had two scouts, who would be constantly sent on ahead to survey the risks. He had them leave Dorothea’s horse behind. 

Ladislava wanted them to approach Enbarr from the west, bypassing the troublesome districts, but Edelgard had a different idea. She wanted Dorothea to shoot down a wyvern so she could capture it. She’d fly into the neighborhood, straight to the general’s house, while Verner, Hubert, and Dorothea provided support. 

“Excellent plan,” Hubert said as Verner said, “I cannot, in good conscience—” and Dorothea said, “Are you insane?” She didn’t know if she said so out of admiration or shock. 

“They think they can take my empire from under my nose before I turn the commoners against them. A show of force will make them come to heel.” 

“Even if I can bring down a wyvern without killing it,” Dorothea said, “we still don’t know where this lord will be when we get to the city.” 

“Trivial. We’ll know by the time we get there,” Hubert said. “Verner will clear out any infantrymen, you and I will provide ranged support, and Lady Edelgard will take the skies. A brilliant plan.” 

“A _brilliant_ plan?” Dorothea echoed. It seemed insane to her, and Verner’s raised eyebrows said that he felt the same. She would much rather take the safe route: sneak into the city, mobilize loyal troops, suppress the rebellion with a few convincing marches. She could see the appeal behind Edelgard’s plan. If they succeeded, then she’d strengthen the perception of her as a powerful military leader, an army unto herself. Any resistors to her rule would be utterly demoralized. It was one thing to be frightened into obedience by assassins, and another to realize that even an army could not save you from the emperor’s axe. 

They baited two wyvern riders close to their position. Dorothea cast Meteor and intentionally missed, smashing one wyvern’s wing and enraging the other. Dorothea and Hubert hit the wyverns with spells at half-power, focused more on unseating the riders. In the trees, they had the advantage of mobility: the enraged wyvern pierced its wings on the branches and threw its rider to the ground, and the wyvern with the Meteor-struck wing couldn’t get back in the air. Edelgard and Verner captured the riders, and Hubert took them away for questioning. The smell of blood blew in with the spring breeze. 

#

On the night before they entered Enbarr, they stopped at the summer house of one of Verner’s lieutenants. The groundskeeper was gone and replaced with soldiers. The furniture inside was covered in sheets, the carpets and rugs with cloths to avoid soldiers dirtying them. They were given rooms in the servants’ quarters to make coming and going easier. The wyverns were put in the empty stables. 

While Verner took watch and Hubert decrypted messages at a desk, Dorothea looked for Edelgard. She found her in a narrow bed in a room at the end of the hall. She was wrapped up in the sheets and blankets and straining against them and her eyes were open, fixed on a point above. Dorothea shook her awake. 

“Are you all right?” Dorothea said. 

“I thought I’d lie down, and…” She sat up, then fell back onto the bed and shut her eyes. She didn’t look like herself, so visibly tired and worn down, yet Dorothea knew well enough that, come morning, Edelgard would be back to her usual self. Still, even if she wasn’t needed, she wanted to help. 

“I’m going to sneak in some shut eye, too,” Dorothea said. She removed her cloak and her riding breeches. Edelgard untangled herself from the sheets and blankets but didn’t open a space for Dorothea right away. 

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I know we’re both tired.” 

“I just meant sleep, Edie. And that’s quite the assumption to make, that you can tell me to die for you and then expect me to lay with you right after.” She doubted Edelgard was in the mood, anyway. She was someone who preferred to take and be taken from positions of strength. 

Edelgard scooted over in bed. Dorothea got in. Once she was there, she couldn’t help herself from putting her hand on Edelgard’s elbow to encourage her to put her arm around Dorothea’s waist. Edelgard didn’t immediately take hold, but once she did, her grip was tight. She had gone to bed with her hair still pinned up, and Dorothea let it down, releasing it from its bonds and running her hands through it. She could never bring herself to be angry for long with Edelgard. Even if Edelgard deserved it for being a blockhead with a literal secret army, she loved Edelgard too much to turn away. Loved in the way that Hubert meant it, but not as devotional. Or at least, in part reciprocated. 

When her hair was fully let out, Edelgard said, “In truth, I didn’t think you’d want to be with me. You said I was cold.” She sounded indignant rather than sorry or reflective in any way. 

“Because you _were_. You told me to go away and then asked me to die for you and then finished it off by saying love mattered less than loyalty. Do you listen to yourself?” Dorothea said. She was still mad, and even her light tone couldn’t hide how Edelgard’s words smarted. “The war’s going to reach every part of Fodlan soon enough. Even if you sent me away, I might still have to fight, and then I’d have to do so alone, without you or anyone at my side. Besides, this is the future you want, isn’t it? I don’t want to be left behind.” 

Edelgard’s eyes flashed, the same way they did in a fight when she spotted a hole in the enemy’s formation. Dorothea winced inwardly. The closer she became to Edelgard, the more common those moments became between them. “Are you afraid of that?” 

“I am. I don’t want to be thrown away.” She was aware of her voice falling away at the end of her sentence, vanishing like a morning fog in the sun. “People throw away beautiful things all the time. They stop being pleased by them, or it goes out of style, or some new girl catches their eye. At least I’m useful to you, right? You’ll use me until—” Until I’m dead, were the words she meant to say, except the dread inside her expanded and pushed against her throat from the inside. 

“Come closer,” Edelgard said, pulling at Dorothea until Dorothea’s head was against her shoulder and their bodies were almost on top of each other. “Dorothea, I don’t need you only because you’re useful to me. Of everyone in our army, you’re the one I want my future to be for.” 

What does that mean, Dorothea wanted to scream. Why did Edelgard spend so much time tinkering with her manifestos and no time thinking about what came out of her mouth? 

“That’s very romantic of you,” she said. “I like it.” 

Edelgard’s mouth pulled up, almost involuntarily, into a smile. “You should have that house,” she said. “A house with a garden with roses and carnations, and—” 

“Why carnations?” She heard roses all the time—her own fault—but the carnations were new. 

“They’re my favorite flowers. Red ones in particular.” 

She said it as though she had explained it many times before, even though Dorothea knew she hadn’t. She would have remembered. She touched Dorothea’s lip with her thumb. She wanted a kiss. It was one of those things Dorothea treasured back when they were in school. Open or closed mouthed, while they were fucking or long, unreasonably long, post-coital makeouts, kisses where they didn’t do more than stay in bed next to each other and occasionally lean over or kisses to wake each other up—it never seemed to matter. 

It wasn’t that she wouldn’t enjoy it, but she needed something else tonight. The world had changed, and the terms of this thing they had, whatever it was, with it. She put one hand on Edelgard’s chest. 

“Edie, do you—is there anything else you’re hiding from me?” she said. 

“Meaning what?” 

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Are you secretly also a dragon? Is there a second, taller Flame Emperor running around? Is this some elaborate plan to become a goddess yourself?” As ridiculous as her words were, she was not joking. She would have fully accepted any of those things as real. After all, she knew so little about Edelgard: the full scope of her plans, the full, terrifying truth of what drove her. 

“My intentions are nothing short of… I see. You don’t trust me.” Her smile was ironic and full of sadness. Of all the things Dorothea could have said, why should this be the one that hurt her the most? 

“I did trust you,” she said. “I do trust you. I’d follow you anywhere, even if you don’t tell me where I’m going. Do you see why that makes me uneasy?” 

Edelgard’s brow was furrowed, as though she was trying to conceptualize, for the first time, what it might be like to not be in complete control, to see things from Dorothea’s side. She propped herself up on her elbow and said, “I’m not a dragon. I am the only Flame Emperor. Any of his crimes are rightfully mine. My intentions are written in my manifesto: I will cut Fodlan free from Rhea’s deceit and take us to a new age, where—” Dorothea tapped her fingers against Edelgard’s chest to remind her that she didn’t have to go through her whole spiel. Edelgard went quiet. Then she said, “If I succeed in establishing a new world order, I will eliminate my uncle and his people.” 

“Was he the one who…” Dorothea extended her pinky finger, so it almost touched one of those scars through Edelgard’s shirt. 

“He did not personally, but he ordered it. He lost faith in his own hand after killing two of my brothers with his sloppy cuts.” Another first. Edelgard never mentioned her siblings. She held her hand out and called the Crest of Seiros, then the Crest of Flames. “Here is the proof of my power and the reason I was made. It’s not worth what I lost, but if it must be mine, then I’ll use it for my own sake. Not for theirs.” 

“I’m sorry,” Dorothea said. She could sense them approaching a terrible place. A thin sheet of sweat had appeared on Edelgard’s forehead, and her neck was rigid with fury, fear. She couldn’t imagine what else was lurking in Edelgard’s childhood. She had imagined something idyllic, then a terrible accident or surgery, she didn’t know. Now she knew and couldn’t take it back. “I didn’t mean to make you remember unpleasant things.”

“I remember even if I don’t want to. It doesn’t matter. As long as I kill the parts of me that keep me from my goal, I’ll have a chance at reclaiming what humanity has lost.” She snuffed the Crest of Flames and with it, the threat of some greater emotion about to crash on them disappeared. Her hand was now twisted tight in the sheets. “Can we go for a walk? I’m feeling restless.” 

They got out of bed and headed to the garden in the back. As they walked, Edelgard took Dorothea’s arm and leaned against it. They were so close together that Dorothea worried that she’d kick Edelgard’s ankle. 

It was too dark to make much of the garden, and the garden was hardly in season, either. They stared at one giant, black hedge after another, one empty flowerbed after another, a fountain. There was only that one fountain. They stopped to stare at it. It was made of marble and, in the moonlight, had an eerie, too-smooth texture and glow. 

“It’s not every day I get you to talk about your past,” Dorothea said. “Why did you… not that I’m ungrateful. Knowing that you trust me enough to tell me something means so much to me. But what brought this on?” 

“I missed you.” The simplicity of the answer cleaved Dorothea neatly in two. “It’s not fair to ask you to subsist solely on the physical side of this relationship. You have questions, and I should try to answer them. I hoped I’d be able to let you go, but I’m selfish. I like having you here.” 

“That’s the whole point of love, you know. Being selfish enough to want to make someone else happy so you can be happy, too.” 

“Love, you say.” Dorothea had said it to bring a smile to Edelgard’s face, but she had carried her dark intensity from the bedroom to the gardens. Her mood remained heavy, her features glum. “You’ve been speaking of love more often than usual.” 

“I think about it all the time,” she said. Usually, she’d lob a sweet comment back or take a swipe at her suitors. It’d feel inappropriate for the mood now. If they were being honest with each other, then she had to say it. “If I were to tell you—if I were to tell you that I’m serious about this, what would you say?” 

“Serious in what way, Dorothea?” 

“If I said that I wanted to be in love with you. Let’s say that.” 

“What I would say or how I’d feel?” 

Oh, no. 

Edelgard tightened her grip on Dorothea’s arm, and then let go. They stayed side-by-side, looking into the empty fountain. Dorothea kept her eyes straight ahead. She didn’t know what had possessed her to ask. But maybe there’d be a miracle waiting for her somewhere—maybe, somewhere out there, their god-like professor wasn’t dead and was in the mood for granting wishes. 

At last, she said, “You want someone who will always put you first. It will be a long time before I can do that. I don’t want you to die waiting to be loved.” 

“Okay.” 

“I don’t mean that I am incapable of loving you. I only mean that during this war, it would be imprudent to pretend I can offer you what you deserve.” 

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” she said. “I understand you perfectly. Not now, but later.” 

“Yes, that’s right. I fully intend—” The even, smooth expression broke into frustration. Edelgard ducked her head and said, “I just want to do this right.” 

“How long are you asking me to wait? How many years? I might not even live that long, if things get bad enough,” she said. 

“I understand. If you should find someone during the war, I won’t be upset,” Edelgard said, speaking as though she had already said this to herself and was fine with it, and that was what cut Dorothea’s strength. The ground soared at her, and she grabbed onto Edelgard’s shoulder, then arm, then hand, as she sank onto the stone path. The white stones reminded her of the streets in Enbarr’s merchant district. She had spent a lot of time crying there when she was young. 

She had always thought it stupid that heroines in operas kept collapsing to the floor in the height of some great emotion, but here she was, falling over like a hollow tree. The more she lived, the truer those overblown operas became. 

Edelgard helped her back up. It felt like something was ending, even if they were going to stay the same. 

“It never seems to matter how many awful things you say to me,” Dorothea said. “I always end up staying.” 

“I’m lucky to have you at my side. Half of the continent wouldn’t mind if you tried to kill me for how badly I treat you. They’d fete you, even.” 

“I don’t like it when you joke like that,” she said quietly. Edelgard took her hand and held it tight. Without further words, they turned back to the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know? If you acquire a new insecurity and already have at least one other, they will automatically learn how to perform combo attacks.


	5. a day in enbarr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorothea's very long, sometimes good, occasionally very bad day. 
> 
> Featuring Captain von Arnault.

At dawn, Dorothea and Hubert entered the city. Edelgard was lying in wait outside the city, and Verner needed to send a message to his men in the city for additional ground support. He would send a messenger when they were ready. 

Vestra had various houses in the city. She and Hubert used one to wash up so they wouldn’t look out of place in the ritzy southern district, where the rebels were based. Dorothea knew that section of Enbarr well. When her mother was alive, they lived by the docks, close to the wide road that separated the southern district from the working class. She used to cross the road with her mother every day on her mother’s way to work as a servant in that man’s house. She was always told to be silent, to not smile, to train her face to be serious, to avoid giving the nobles in the area something to dislike about her. When she was older and an orphan, she crossed the gates early in the morning to sing on those street corners, making sure to wear her best and cleanest clothes. The nobles there loved to be generous but hated a mess. 

In the house, they cleaned themselves, put on a change of clothes and borrowed some armor, and put on a light disguise. Hubert heated a tin of pomade over a flame to slick his hair back and keep it low to his head. On Dorothea’s insistence, he allowed her to put some makeup on. 

“There,” she said. “Now no one will suspect you of being Lord Hubert von Vestra.”

It was true. With his hair out of the way and some color on his face, he looked less like a frazzled tree and more like the kind of noble she’d smile at and ask for a dance. The added eyebrows were—well, obviously a different color from his hair. Dorothea only had a brown pencil with her. Not his best look, though the shape was a good fit. The eyeshadow was a nice touch, in her opinion. It drew attention to and softened his most striking features at once.

“Did you choose red to make me look even more ghastly or did you have some other aim in mind?” he said, inspecting her work in a dusty mirror. 

“Matching to your eye color is out of fashion these days, and red suits you better. This way, you look like a cultivated young man.” 

“Hmm. I prefer not to.” 

“Hush, Hubie. Let me have my fun.” He helped her braid her hair. He was quick, efficient, and experienced. “Did you do this for Edie a lot?” 

“Yes. When she was Flame Emperor, I would help her dress. It’s a cumbersome costume.” He reached into a drawer and pulled out pins and began to stick them into Dorothea’s hair. 

“Why didn’t she keep it? It looks very impressive.” 

“She hates the ones who made it for her. I believe she told you about her uncle.” Of course Hubert knew. Dorothea tried to not look surprised. “I’ll debrief you after this fight. I only ask that you not go about telling everyone about this.” 

“Riding lessons and secret meetings? You’re spoiling me. It’s almost as though you trust me.” 

“When you’ve proven yourself further by eliminating another thirty assassins, we’ll see about trust.” He put a hand on her shoulder so she’d know he was joking. 

A messenger came asking for him, and he left her to finish dressing alone. 

Dorothea finished pinning her hair in place. She made sure she wore neutral colors, black and cream, with a splash of red hidden by her cloak. She thought about putting on her makeup, the way she did before going to battle to keep her spirits up, and decided against it. She was trying to avoid drawing attention to herself, and she had never stepped into Enbarr without a face on. Looking in the mirror now, she recognized she was beautiful, though in a way she rarely thought to assign herself: her shape straightened out by armor, her bearing without any levity, and someone else’s purpose—Edelgard’s purpose—carved into her face. She looked like a soldier. 

#

The clouds were low when they arrived in Enbarr. She and Hubert strolled through the city, Dorothea trying to play the role of a mercenary-cum-bodyguard and Hubert the role of an insouciant young lord. No one recognized her, though on the walls, posters still had her face on them. The painter rendered her eyes a liquid, starry black, her mouth open with musical notes spilling out, and her hand tucked against her body in such a way that pointed directly at her cleavage. 

The first time she saw the poster, she stopped walking. Hubert, always mindful of his walking partners, stopped before it, too. 

“You look exactly the same,” he said. 

“Really, you think so? I look so… young.” 

“It’s a painting.” 

“You’re supposed to tell me I’m more beautiful in person,” she said. “Oh, never mind.” 

The rebel lords were gathered in the house of Marquis Mogens in the center of the noble residential area. The house itself was enormous, with tall hedges behind and in front of a tall, iron fence. People, all nobles, all in armor, poured in and out of the side and back entrances. They weren’t nearly as sneaky as they thought they were. The house was easily the tallest structure nearby, except for the church a few blocks to the north. Ordinarily, they would have had Dorothea go in on foot with Hubert and Verner, but Hubert had an idea: with Dorothea’s eyes and advanced casting range, if they could get her in the church’s spire… 

With Hubert and Edelgard, there was never an opportunity they didn’t want to see through. They went to the church, a tall, imposing brick structure, built during the eighth century. It was the morning worship, and a small crowd of nobles, drawn to the church on their way to or from Mogens’ house, were gathered in the pews with their heads bowed and their fine, silver chainmail shining beneath their silk and wool robes. 

Hubert lowered his head but kept his hands behind his back, too principled to give in. Dorothea put her hands together and bowed her head and bent her thoughts towards their next mission. She didn’t need there to be a goddess to pray for good luck and for good fortune, although she knew it didn’t make much sense: what exactly was she praying to, or to whom? The closest thing to a goddess in the world was Rhea or the professor or Edelgard—and while she liked the idea of praying to Edelgard in a metaphorical sort of way, she knew Edelgard would never accept it in real life. 

Even before her time at the academy, she had never been able to pray to the goddess with her whole heart. She always thought her prayers would go unanswered. No matter how sincerely or deeply she prayed, she would never be saved. Edelgard’s attack on the church only showed her how right she had been—but she wanted, so badly, for there to be something there. 

She opened her eyes and found herself alone in the pews. Hubert had snuck off somewhere. She didn’t flail or startle. She stayed still and kept her eyes low and ears engaged. The nobles were talking amongst themselves, expressing irritation with the new priest, whispering about what happened to the previous bishop. Found dead in his office, supposedly from heart attack, but if rumors were true, one of Edelgard’s assassins had gotten to him. Truth be told, Dorothea suspected the same. 

Some of them snuck looks back at her, and each one caught her breath. She let her hands drop down and picked up a book and opened it up. 

“That’s her.” 

“No.”

“It is…” 

She took a breath, imagining Shamir, and dropped her voice low. “What is it.” They jeered at her but turned away. She clicked her tongue at them. “Thought so.” 

“Not the same voice at all…”

“Too tall to be…” 

“Too old…” 

It was the last one, of all things, that made her body physically ache with the urge to throttle them. 

The priest led them through another prayer, then said he was ready to bestow blessings. Dorothea left the pews then, heading for the alcove where churches kept their statues of the saints. She was almost there when she noticed Hubert coming down the stairs by the entrance. The stairs had been hidden behind a metal fence; he must have picked the lock. He beckoned her over. 

He took her up to the deacon’s office, then higher up to the steeple to the belfry. They tested the spire first, then, using a rope ladder gone a grimy brown from years of weather and use, up into the spire. The spire was a beautiful piece of work, twelve pieces of metal twisted to the sky like a cage, but up there, every time the wind blew, the metal would groan and Dorothea would get a horrible feeling in her stomach that she was about to be blown down onto the street. Down at the belfry, the problem was the belfry posts: it obscured her view. They decided to keep her in the spire and have her retreat to the belfry, if needed. 

From the top, she could see Mogens’ mansion easily, even without the spyglass Hubert gave her. Hubert had her point out the places she should avoid hitting with Meteor: the east wing of the house, where Mogens kept his library, the kitchen and servant quarters in the south. A small contingent of Verner’s soldiers had come in already through the south and would surround the perimeter after Edelgard’s first attack. Dorothea was to aim squarely for the north wing, as much as she was able to. The signal to cast would be Edelgard’s wyvern descending to the church. 

“There’s a risk that your position may be uncovered,” Hubert said. “Your priority is to stay in the spire as long as possible and eliminate any threats to the emperor that you see. You may leave only if your position becomes indefensible. We will rendezvous at the Hound’s Arch. Take care to watch below you. It’d be a shame for you to be shot down.”

“Don’t worry, Hubie. I’ll protect her with my life.” 

“It puts me at ease to hear those words from you.” He went down the rope ladder and made a strange gesture. He tugged at it a few times. Oh. He wanted her to pull the rope ladder all the way up. She did as he recommended, and once she did, the height of the steeple from the city hit her: here she was, all alone. Her hand clenched around the spyglass, and she sat down. 

The clouds thinned more. She felt, rather than saw, Edelgard’s sign. A powerful gust of wind knocked into her from behind, and when she stood up to look, Edelgard and the wyvern were there. Edelgard pulled the wyvern up, made a long circle around the church, and brought the wyvern close again, so close that Dorothea could see Edelgard’s face. Her cheeks were bright pink from the wind and her white hair pulled away from her face in a bun. Her armored hands were covered in droplets from her plunge through the clouds. Dorothea felt her throat open up for a song and just barely kept her mouth shut. It’d be a beautiful image for her opera someday. 

Magic jumped into her hands. It felt perfectly natural. This was what she was meant for, just as Edelgard was meant to be the conqueror: to stand at the back line and demolish their enemy’s defenses before the warriors even arrived. She said the incantation and felt her feet lift off the ground. She envisioned the path her Meteor would take to the north wall and unleashed the spell. The north wing erupted in a spray of rocks and fire. 

“A fine hit!” Edelgard said. She urged her wyvern forward and was gone. 

Edelgard was there before the archers even had their bows ready. Dorothea could see it all: Edelgard sent her wyvern crashing through the smashed roof, her great axe, Aymr, raised. Verner and his battalion, wearing crimson and yellow, streamed in through the southern entrance, most of the men securing the perimeter and shouting at Mogens’ neighbors, some charging into the mansion to deal with the rebels in the other side. She saw Hubert’s black and purple magic at work, even though she couldn’t see where he was. A second wyvern approached from the west, the rider also in crimson and yellow. He was an archer and shot at those trying to escape or those who threatened his comrades’ safety. 

Dorothea, from the church steeple, used Thoron and Sagittae to knock away the reinforcements housed in the neighboring mansions. Smoke rose into the air. They’d attract attention soon. Dorothea couldn’t see Edelgard with her bare eyes and used her spyglass to scan the arena. There, on the stairs, visible now that the roof had been smashed. Edelgard had a noble on his knees before her, her axe at his neck. He bowed down, about to surrender, and Edelgard staggered. An archer had fired an arrow into her armor from somewhere Dorothea couldn’t see. The noble at her feet got off his knees, ready to run again, and Edelgard’s axe came up—the archer fired again, hitting her gauntleted hand, and Edelgard turned to look over her shoulder. Dorothea swung her spyglass again, searching. There were the surrendered, their heads bowed penitently and surrounded by knights. There was Hubert, destroying the house across the street. There was Edelgard’s wyvern in the mansion, roaring at the sky with an arrow in its neck. There was Verner, bleeding to death in the gardens. Arrows and magic had done him in: magic punched holes through his armor, arrows had flown into the waiting holes. She hadn’t seen him fall. The injuries looked fresh. She cast Physic but felt nothing from him. The man was dead. 

She searched the gardens frantically and saw, hiding behind some smoldering topiary and a collapsed statue, an assassin with a longbow standing in a window and two noble mages with their hands extended. The damage done to the mansion meant they had a clear sightline from the mansion to where Edelgard had to be. The arrows wouldn’t be a problem, but the mages… Dorothea readied a Meteor. She had to make sure—

A bloom of lava knocked the spyglass out of her hands. Her palms erupted with blisters. Dorothea’s hand went for her bag, with the vulneraries, but stopped herself. Bolganone was a short-range spell that lost power with range. Her attacker had to be in the church. She let her eyes fall down and saw four nobles at the front of the church. They had found her. 

Another burst of lava came at her. In the spire, there was no escape from the blast. She threw her cloak over her body and mustered as much of her magic around her to protect her. The lava heated the bricks and crumbled some. The spire cracked above her head. Oh, this could go very badly. She could withstand whatever magic they threw at her, but nobles were heading up the steeple, sealing off her route of escape. She could go now—climb down the rope ladder, use the narrow stairs to her advantage to force a one-on-one instead of one-on-three or however many of them there were. If she did that, then Edelgard would have to fight off the archer and mages alone. 

Her situation looked—well, it looked bad. It looked very bad. But she had promised to follow Edelgard, it was as Hubert said: it wouldn’t matter how badly she was hurt as long as the emperor was safe. She’d make it down the steeple somehow. She had said she’d die for Edelgard, and she would. Not today, though. 

She charged Meteor, ignoring the pain in her hands, ignoring the bricks growing hotter all around her, and the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. She could see, faintly, the shapes of her targets, and knew she’d hit them, or at least injure them badly. She let the spell loose, and the garden turned into a smashed pit. 

Pieces of the roof were crumbling into her hair. She kicked the ladder down and climbed down. Blisters on her palms and fingers burst, sticking her hand to the rope. She yanked her raw skin free and made it to the belfry. She ripped apart her sleeve with her teeth and wrapped her sword hand in it. As long as she kept a tight grip on the sword, it didn’t hurt that much. The door slammed open. 

“Welcome to the best seats in the show!” Dorothea said and hit the intruder with Thunder. The impact rang the bells and blinded her enemy, unused, as she was, to the searing light. She slashed his throat with her sword. Blood sprayed into her mouth and eyes; she jerked her head out of the jet and was slugged in the cheek by the man behind the corpse. She almost fell to the floor but balanced herself enough to fire a Sagittae through the dead man and into the brawler. A solid hit, but not enough to put him down. Her second Thunder missed, sailing over the brawler’s head and dissipating into the clouds, and she dodged a Fire spell launched at her from the ground. The dead man was shoved out of the doorway by a swordsman, and she was in real trouble now. She might have been able to do this if she could force a one-on-one, but with two melee fighters in front of her and a warlock on the ground, she was at a disadvantage. She had to fight her way back down the stairs. 

She parried a few blows from the swordsman. Her burnt hands weakened with each blow, and she knew she was showing weakness. The swordsman used more of his strength and knocked the sword out of Dorothea’s hands. He kicked it off the edge of the belfry and thrust his sword at her stomach. A glancing blow; she twisted out of the way, and her armor deflected the sword and knocked it into her arm. The brawler caught up to her quick enough, hitting her twice, once to the side of her head and another time to her side. Her vision went white from the impact. If she weren’t so used to getting knocked around on the battlefield, she might have fallen. She knew the swordsman was drawing his arm back, preparing for run her through. The brawler cut off her escape to the doors; the only way out was to jump off the steeple. 

It was pure luck that the warlock on the ground didn’t have a good view. They cast Fire, filling the air with flaming wreck. The swordsman jumped out of the way, and Dorothea summoned the quickest, fastest spell she knew, Thunder, and cast it directly into the brawler’s face. The sight of his blasted head, all human features charred off—her stomach turned. She shoved the body away and ran to the stairs. She had an idea, a terrible one. She ran as close to the edge of the belfry as she could, so the warlock on the ground could see her, then threw herself at the ground. 

“I have you!” the swordsman cried out in triumph. Then Bolganone crashed into him. With no magical talent to protect him, the skin on his face and arm boiled away. He dropped his sword and howled in pain. Dorothea picked up the sword. Her hands shook. It’s me or them, she thought, and put the sword into his neck. 

Dorothea didn’t stay any longer. She ran down the stairs. It was a struggle to open the vulneraries with her raw hands, but she bit her lip to get through the pain, even as her hands bled and stuck to the glass. She splashed the medicine onto her palms and fingers, then drank as much as she could without gagging, one gulp and then another; she had to stop to let her body seal itself back together, skin materializing over her palm, cuts scabbing and then flaking off. Unlike healing with magic, which was almost painless, vulneraries always hurt. 

When she reached the bottom of the church, soldiers in red and yellow had surrounded the church. The warlock who had harassed her from below had been killed. One of Verner’s soldiers kept shouting, “Captain Arnault! Captain!” at her, and after the fourth time, Dorothea realized he was talking to her. 

The emperor requested her presence. She was given a military jacket and a red cape and was put on a horse, a frankly enormous one—the better to fit her new role as Captain Arnault, her third role in a year and a half—and went to the gates separating the southern district from the docks. The number of soldiers behind her seemed to grow as they marched forward. Each time someone said, “The eagle has returned!” a new crop of soldiers, in fresh armor, ran out to join them, some crying out in confusion and others asking if they were marching for her or against her—the ranks were still undecided. Dorothea had to be the one to break the news: Princess Edelgard had returned from Garreg Mach to claim the throne. Some tried to run; they were grabbed and forced in line by their peers, or beaten on the street by a group of soldiers wearing black and carrying the flag of the Flame Emperor. With all the commotion and fighting, it took a long time for them to make it to the next point. 

They stopped at that big, wide road, the one Dorothea had crossed so many times as a girl. Soldiers, Edelgard’s people, filled the streets, keeping the growing crowd back. The rebel nobles had been dragged to the center of the street. Some of them wept; some of them had been gagged, and those stared at Edelgard and her people hatefully; most were stoic. Smoke from the broken mansions billowed up to the clouds. Ash darkened the streets. 

Edelgard was on the dock side of the street, greeting the commoners with a smile. Someone had found her a red cape and brought her a hooped crown. It looked like someone had just barely gotten the dust off it. Dorothea recognized the design from the operas as one of the war crowns, from Adrestia’s older days. 

Even though Edelgard’s armor was bloody, the people didn’t shy away from her. Children tried to run up to her, and Edelgard allowed a few of them through. 

“No, I’m not a granny,” Dorothea heard Edelgard say more patiently than she would’ve expected. “I’m eighteen. How old are you, sweet one?” She picked up another child and, on command, spun them around in a circle and handed them back to their parent. A grub of a child tried to run off with one of Edelgard’s gold chains hanging off her waist; she picked that child up, gave them a coin, and sent them off. Dorothea suddenly needed some water. 

Hubert helped Dorothea off the horse. His face had been scrubbed of the makeup, and parts of his armor was dented and torn. 

“You there, heal Captain Arnault,” he said. He spat onto a rag and used it to wipe her face. “Stop recoiling. This is for Her Majesty.”

“I don’t want your spit on me, even if it is for Edie,” she said. “Can’t you use water? Hubie, this is _gross_.” 

Hubert sighed loudly, but used the last of the water from his flask to wet the rag. 

After she was healed and cleaned off, she was asked to stand by the prisoners. There were people she recognized in there, men and women who had attended the opera and had their own box. Not just the old nobles, but younger ones, too, ones that she thought of as grabby or spiteful. She wondered if they recognized her. If they did, they had bigger problems now. A trumpet blew a series of high, clear notes, cutting through the noise. 

“Emperor Edelgard,” Hubert said and bowed low. The commoners lowered their heads, and across the road, the nobles did, as well. First only those loyal to Edelgard, then more of them, until everyone’s heads were low. Dorothea, remembering the occasion, remembering that this was not her Edelgard but the emperor making her way to the prisoners, bent at the waist. 

The prisoners had been stripped of their armor and weapons and made to kneel on the hard ground. Edelgard addressed the prisoners directly without asking anyone to rise up. 

“How shameful that you’ve let yourselves fall so low,” Edelgard said. “I take no pleasure in killing talented people who could have been my allies. Months ago, I extended my hand in friendship to you, and you chose to hate me rather than accept my coming rule. I am not as soft as Ionius was. When I hear rats scrambling at my feet, I stomp down.” She paused and looked to the nobles gathered on the street. “For those of you who survive this night, you do not have to love me. I ask only that you find a way to be of use.” 

One of the soldiers brought Marquis Mogens forward to a chopping block, set in front of the nobles. Edelgard held her hand out, and Hubert gave her a steel axe with a wicked, curving blade. Aymr, apparently, was too good for this task. Mogens struggled a few times. Then a bag was put over his head and his knees stomped on. Edelgard watched her people beat Mogens without disgust. 

Dorothea couldn’t bring herself to look away. This was, in many ways, all of her revenge fantasies enacted. She had never known Mogens, but she could too easily imagine him kicking her down. She had imagined men like him falling down in front of her, and her boot on their heads. But what had pushed them there? Men like these could not be brought down unless someone cut them at the knee. 

“Enough,” Edelgard said. “He’s ready. Lord Fritz von Mogens, for your crimes of insurrection and betrayal, I dissolve your House and end you.” 

She made no test swing. She raised her arm straight up and severed Mogens’ head with a single blow. Dorothea took a step back—she was horrified by how defenseless Mogens was, by how easy it had looked. Edelgard handed the axe to a soldier and gazed at the crowd, some screaming, some cheering, all noise. Her face was on, a cold, unemotional object. Other prisoners were being brought up to the block for their turn. Edelgard disappeared into a group of soldiers wearing all red. Hubert appeared at Dorothea’s side. 

“Let’s go,” he said. He was unfazed by the sound of the axe’s stroke, the shrieks of fear or joy from the crowd, the steady beating of drums. If anything, he looked happy. 

All of this, then, was according to plan. 

#

Once they stepped into the palace, no one knew what to do with her. Edelgard was whisked away to be bathed and more neatly arranged. Hubert had a list of orders memorized: this wing to be open; Sigismund and Griselda’s personal effects packed and ready to go; space to be prepared for Edelgard’s returning generals; plans for dinner with Count Bergliez the next day; was Varley’s estate surrounded? And his father, was he ready to see his only son? The last thing he said before he vanished under a sea of courtiers and messengers was, “Find Captain Arnault a room where the emperor can see her privately later.” 

The servants of the palace kept calling her von Arnault out of confusion. She asked them to call her Dorothea, and they repeated her name with obedience. 

“Once, you know, I was a street urchin…” she said. She wanted to let them know that she wasn’t like that, she wasn’t like those nobles she had just watched executed, the ones they spent their lives tending to. They murmured kind words and went on to treat her the same as before. 

Her position had changed, she realized. Her proximity to the emperor and her new rank meant she had social standing and capital in a tangible, real way. She never had anything like that before. Somehow, in the space of a few weeks, she went from one of them to some out of touch captain in the army. 

The servants argued about where to place her, and, after some debate, took her to a room in the east wing. She was given a room at the end of the hall. A wash basin was prepared for her while the bath was drawn up. Two servants stood ready with towels to get the muck and blood off her. She sent them away, too self-conscious to be helped this way. 

When she was clean, she stepped into the bath. The water was hot and scented with oils. Some number of letters were piled on a table nearby, with a towel so she could dry her hands. Dorothea didn’t understand how she had only been in Enbarr for a few hours and already had letters, but she decided to read them. 

The first was from the opera company, a quickly written letter from her old friends asking if she was that Captain von Arnault who had destroyed the church in the southern half of the city. The second from a noble named von Hrodgeirr, asking if she remembered him. She did remember him. She tore his letter apart, not caring that he had written on nice paper scented with lavender and lemon zest. 

The other letters contained a series of proposals from men and one woman she used to flirt with when she was at the big opera parties. They were a familiar type to Dorothea; she used to get a dozen of them a week and read them obsessively. Even after those letters lost their charm, the younger her read them in hopes of finding something true. If five people complimented her eyes, then she knew her eyes were beautiful. If she got eight letters saying her skin was like the moon—it was always the moon with these people—she’d know how much rouge to use. If people said she sang well the night before, she knew she sang well. Why should their opinion matter so much when she had eyes and ears herself? Looking over the new crop of letters, she hated both the writers for their obvious insincerity and their imagined recipient, pathetic enough to need them. Already she was not the person they thought she was. 

She toweled herself dry, wrapped her hair up, and put on the clothes the servants left for her, some dreary, black military uniform with a long skirt, and went exploring. The bedroom she had been assigned opened to a small courtyard. Unlike the other parts of the palace, which were clean and meticulously kept, there were dead leaves around the bases of the trees and on the walkways. None of the other rooms in the hall were occupied. Some rooms were empty, others were stacked with unused furniture. There were two rooms that had been left as they were, children’s rooms, with toys scattered on the floor. 

Dorothea went back to her room and sat at the desk. It was a desk meant for an adult—she felt such relief at that—with names lightly carved into the wood: Ionius VIII, Katarina, Thiemo, Valeska, Ionius IX… She hadn’t exactly had much time for formal history lessons growing up, but she knew Ionius’ name, and recognized some of the others. This had been the desk of little princelings and princesses. 

Someone knocked on the door. 

“It’s Edelgard. May I come in?” 

“I’m the guest in your home,” Dorothea said. “You should be striding around wherever you want.” 

Edelgard opened the door all the way. She was wearing a plain white dress, cinched at the waist with a buff sash, and carrying Dorothea’s bags. She set them on the ground and went around the room, fluffing the pillows and smoothing the blankets. She didn’t look tired at all, despite the fresh blood on her hands or their long journey to Enbarr. 

She made her way to the desk. Her fingers traced one of the carvings: Sigi, El, Therese. She cleared her throat before she spoke. “They put you in Sigismund’s room. What did Hubert say to the servants? ‘Find Dorothea the one room in the house where no one will ever see her?’ If the point was to isolate you, they couldn’t have chosen a better spot. Father had this whole wing turned into a mausoleum. Metaphorically, I mean.” 

“I was wondering about that,” Dorothea said, relieved that Edelgard had said so. She had the same feeling of not belonging in these wings, and it was a relief to know that it wasn’t because of her class or anything like that. She didn’t belong because she lived, and this room was for the dead.

Edelgard looked absently at the gardens, then said, “Your bags were delivered here, but I’d be more comfortable if you’d sleep closer to my quarters. Would you like to?” 

“Oh, thank you. Yes, I would. You didn’t have to come all this way to fetch me.” 

“I didn’t want you to think I was hiding you away. I’ll tell the steward to keep your room near Hubert’s in the future. That way, you’ll always be close to one of us.” 

On the way to Edelgard’s rooms, they ran into Ionius in the hall. Side-by-side, Ionius looked like the shade to Edelgard’s burning fire: the father exhausted and withered and clothed in beautiful red and white robes, the daughter clearly the stronger and more regal of them, despite her plain dress. Even now, Edelgard curtsied when they stopped to talk. 

“Old habit,” she said, rising up. She accepted Ionius kneeling before her and didn’t help him stand, even when he struggled. 

“Will you take dinner with me tonight?” Ionius asked. 

“Not tonight. We’re exhausted,” she said. “We’ll lunch when I visit Griselda and Sigi. I’ll send their rooms to you. Will the manor have space?” 

“Yes, it will. I’m sure they’ll appreciate seeing their things again.” He turned his sad face to Dorothea. “It’s heartening to see my daughter make friends beyond young Vestra. Your Majesty, Miss Arnault.” 

“Please don’t kneel again,” Edelgard said quickly. “In my future, I hope status won’t matter so much. No one should have to bend to another.”

“Oh, yes. My dear girl.” He settled for a bow, which Edelgard, stubbornly, returned in equal depth and respectfulness. 

He went down the hall. It felt like it had been a month since Dorothea arrived in Enbarr, but it wasn’t even sundown. He walked through beam after beam of afternoon sunlight. The farther he walked, the more he looked like a daytime ghost. 

Edelgard showed Dorothea the emperor’s bedchambers first. Hubert was in the room next to hers, and the room Dorothea was to take across from his. The chambers were enormous, with a massive bed at the center, and well-furnished. The wood was beautiful, dark, and glowed with age and care. An incongruous purple chair faced a different, more beautiful garden. Across from the purple chair was a high-backed chaise upholstered in all black—Hubert’s, she knew, without having to ask. In the corner, a red dress stood on a wooden form. Looking closer, the arm pieces were gauntlets, not gloves, and the leg covers were armored, not plain cloth. The front had an odd shape, adjusted around a chest plate. 

“Is that yours?” Dorothea said. “Edie, it’s gorgeous! Oh, I can already see it on you, spikes on your knees and all. It’s just like the two of you to make it all red, though. You’re going to look like a blood clot.” 

“What? There’s gold and the inside of the cape is a deeper shade of red—”

“You’ve been looking at it too long, you can’t see it anymore. Trust me, you’ll want a way for your dress to stand out from the cape. You need more contrast… but not black.”

“Dorothea, I have to present myself to the people in this regalia in a matter of days.” She went to her desk and scribbled a few things down with a quill. “What else do you see? Tell me now.”

“Oh, no, I—” 

“Very well. If you won’t say anything, then I’ll have to resign myself to being styled as Emperor Edelgard the Bloody Clot instead of Emperor Edelgard the Redeemer or whatever the historians will think of,” she said. 

“Don’t be silly. They’d come up with something better than Edie the Bloody Clot. Edelgard the…” Bloodthirsty was the first word that came to mind. She pretended to still be searching for words. “Gorgeous, or Unifier, or the Gorgeous Unifier—”

“That’s quite enough.” 

She gave in and stayed in Edelgard’s room, listing all the ways she’d like to see the regalia improved. Some suggestions—a tall slit on the side, a cut out to expose her breasts, a plunging back—were rejected outright, but there was something cute about watching Edelgard take her so seriously. Dorothea wasn’t used to it. 

She wound up reclining in the bed while Edelgard took notes on her desk, and later, Edelgard abandoned her desk to feed Dorothea slices of pear. She put goat cheese in her palm and let Dorothea lick it out and kiss her hand. What a life! You wake up in the morning in a maid’s bed, fight in a church steeple nearly to your death, watch an execution, and, hours later, lounge in the emperor’s bed, eating cheese … 

“Do you think people have sex in this bed?” Dorothea said. “Everything’s too soft. You’d throw your back out. Is there somewhere else people usually go?” 

“You _know_ these were my father’s rooms until just last month? He had eleven children, including myself,” Edelgard said, and Dorothea burst into laughter, laughter and then a kind of blank-brained groan, like someone was scrubbing at the inside of her head with steel wool. The bed was warm, and she was exhausted, too exhausted to ignore the ache of her body, how her head still hurt from the brawler’s punches, how her arm hurt from the bite of the sword, how she really did not care for horses, but had been put on top of one for hours, or what felt like hours. The day was not yet over, she hadn’t had dinner, and she didn’t know if she could eat a full meal without becoming ill. 

Edelgard, from her position on the desk, let go of her quill. Ink blotted on the papers. Her cheeks were pink as she went up a series of wooden steps on the other side of the bed to Dorothea. She didn’t step onto the mattress. She stayed on the top step and put her hand on Dorothea’s head and rubbed it firmly. Dorothea made herself move closer so she could be held more easily. She kept her face in the blankets as Edelgard’s hands, the same hands that had decapitated a man hours ago, touched her still-drying, freshly washed hair, ran along her neck and face, applying considered, gentle pressure. 

“I’m so tired,” Dorothea said. “Why am I so tired? It never felt this bad when we were at school.” 

“When we were in school, we fought because the professor told us we should, or Rhea asked us to,” she said. “Now there’s nothing but our own convictions. I find it freeing, but it’s not always easy.” 

“No. At least I know I can always believe in you if it gets too tiring.” 

Edelgard didn’t look away from Dorothea, but she did say, in a manner too rushed to be natural, “Are your eyes holding tension? I can help with that, too.” 

“Yes, I’d like that,” she said, shutting her eyes and letting Edelgard’s fingertips rub slow circles over her eyelids. Her thumbs pressed into the sloping sides of Dorothea’s head, squeezing the ache out. “Where did you even learn how to do this?” 

“You had to have a Crest to be given a retainer like Hubert. My siblings were always making me fix their hair or brush their shoes, since he did those things for me. It feels nice doing this for someone else.” 

“When you say things like that, it’s almost like you love me,” Dorothea said. Edelgard’s fingers stilled. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…” 

“The war has just started, and our victories are coming quickly, so it’s easy to be kind. Next year, who knows if things will be the same?” Edelgard said, letting go of Dorothea’s head. Dorothea opened her eyes. “I might be cruel and frozen at the center by then.” 

“Like I said, I’m sorry,” Dorothea said, getting hot. “Even if next year goes badly, I don’t think my feelings will change, as long as you care for me. I don’t even understand why you should worry about my feelings, since you’ve already decided yours.” 

“All right, I get it,” she said. “I thought you said you understood we would deal with these questions later.” 

“I understand it, but I don’t like it. You know it’s unfair, Edie. I already have people writing to me for my hand.” 

She didn’t know why she had said that. She didn’t take the letters seriously, and she hadn’t been trying to make Edelgard jealous. She was trying to do something stupider: signal that she was eligible, that she was beautiful, talented, desirable to others, all things Edelgard knew already and hardly cared about when she had her own way of seeing and wanting Dorothea. 

But maybe Edelgard was capable of jealousy. She smoothed her hair from her face and said, “Are we going to keep fighting, or will you let me show you how I feel?” 

That was one of the truly aggravating parts of Edelgard, Dorothea was learning. The more important something was to her, the less likely it was for her to apologize. Dorothea didn’t want to keep fighting. It had hurt when Edelgard stopped coming to see her before they marched on Garreg Mach; hurt, too, that their intimacy had been put on hold for the war, and all talk of love shut down. If she couldn’t have love, she wasn’t going to complain of other forms of closeness being on offer. She had made this choice before and always erred the other way, but she wasn’t willing to give up yet. 

She stretched her arms out and brought Edelgard down to the bed for a kiss. It was their first proper kiss since before the Holy Tomb, and much of it was the same: the smoothness of her lips, the initial flicker of doubt in Dorothea’s chest put out by how swiftly Edelgard deepened the kiss, the way she let Dorothea position her head. 

Dorothea didn’t know whether it was just how long it had been or pent up tension from all the fighting, but kissing activated a hot, punching heat between her legs that had her squirming and redirecting Edelgard’s hands to her waist, down to her thighs. She unfastened the buttons on Edelgard’s dress and ran her nails over her back. That was her plan, at least. She wound up grabbing at her with no elegance, too hungry to hold back. She rolled Edelgard over so she was on top, hiking up her skirt to straddle Edelgard’s hips better. Already, she rocked forward to catch some friction, and Edelgard responded instantly, pulling Dorothea down against her—it really was a nice dress she had on, so smooth and gauzy against the inside of her thighs, and Dorothea regained enough control over herself to shove the dress up so it wouldn’t get smeared with her slickness. 

“Been a while, hasn’t it?” Dorothea said, taking one of Edelgard’s breasts in her hand. No binding or support today. The slip was cotton, no barrier to her touch. Dorothea liked being able to squeeze Edelgard’s whole breast, to feel the entirety of her softest parts contained in her palm. “I missed these.” Oh, she sounded like an oaf. “I missed being close to you.”

“I missed you, too,” Edelgard said. She pulled Dorothea down for a kiss. After only a moment’s hesitation, she pulled her dress and slip off all the way, without any apparent care. She had been naked in front of Dorothea before, but only by candlelight. She pushed her chest out, trying to look haughty, but Dorothea knew better. The tilt of her chin gave her away. She was nervous. “How do you like it?” 

“I’ll always like you,” Dorothea said, her voice wavering. She recognized Edelgard’s nakedness for what it was: a minor, but not insignificant, surrender. It still hurt to look at the scars for too long, but Dorothea could see the full shape of the body that bore them, compact and powerful. She undid the buttons on her uniform and tossed the pieces aside, the cape, the skirt, the jacket, the underthings, then lay down on top of Edelgard, covering her body with her own, and kissed her neck until they were both relaxed and easy. She returned her hand to Edelgard’s breast, catching her nipple between the sides of her fingers and squeezing. 

“Not too hard today,” Edelgard said. She spread her legs so Dorothea could fit more easily between them. 

Dorothea caught a glimpse of her folds, shining and swollen with arousal. She ran her finger from Edelgard’s navel, soft despite the muscle underneath, to her pubic bone, back up; across to the crest of her hip bones, down to the hot inside of her thighs. “You’re such a picture. I could just eat you up. Will you let me?” 

“Yes, I’ll let you,” she said. She sounded so sweet, so unguarded for her. Desire drummed a steady beat in Dorothea’s ears, between her legs. She moved down quick, grabbing one of the million pillows on the bed and putting them under Edelgard’s hips, and kissed her thigh, coming almost all the way to her slit, then switching legs. She could see Edelgard’s clit, stiff and ready for her mouth or fingers. Whichever Edelgard wanted would be hers. She went back to leaving kisses on Edelgard’s inner thighs. Edelgard put her hand on Dorothea’s head. “I didn’t say to deny your emperor.” 

“You would want me to call you emperor in bed,” she said, laughing. She slapped the inside of Edelgard’s thigh. “Be patient, Edie. I’ll get there.” 

“I don’t want to wait for you to get there. I want to be there now.” 

“If you feel so strongly about it, then next time, you should ride my face. I’d let you.”

“If you say so, then I shall,” she said, then muffled her shout with her hand when Dorothea pushed her face into her pussy and sealed her lips around her clit. “Dorothea, keep going, keep _going_.” 

Once she started, it was hard to keep herself from giving Edelgard exactly what she wanted. She rubbed the underside of Edelgard’s clit with her thumb, opening her mouth wide so she could work her stiffened tongue deeper into her cunt. Her senses were all pinned down by Edelgard’s body, tongue trapped, nose bent into her pussy, ears full of the sound of Edelgard’s rough breathing and her high cries. It was nearly perfect, and she would’ve been happy to stay this way forever if Edelgard would release her spare hand, the one not touching her clit, so Dorothea could pleasure herself, too. She wanted them to come at the same time, and was certain she could make it happen. Every time she tried to take her hand back, Edelgard held on tighter, as though to deny her. 

“Edie, be nice,” Dorothea said, stopping for just a second to look up. Her arousal didn’t let up once she saw Edelgard’s red face and chest, her scars standing out even more against her blush. If anything, she loved, painfully, how willing Edelgard was for her. 

“I don’t want to let you go,” she said, with rare and complete honesty. Dorothea’s hand suddenly felt on fire. “Make me come, and I’ll let you have yours.” 

“You really do want it gentle tonight, don’t you?” she said. “Okay, but you have to keep still. Can you do that?” 

Edelgard nodded. She eased her legs further apart and took a few breaths to compose herself. Dorothea let Edelgard lace their fingers together and bent back down. She switched the position of her mouth and hand, this time circling her entrance with her fingers, stretching it without entering far, while her tongue teased at Edelgard’s clit, licking around it but not making direct contact until Edelgard dug her nails into the back of her hand. 

Dorothea soon found what Edelgard wanted most: her clit enveloped by her mouth, her tongue drawing tight circles right on the tip. She was determined to make this good, to get Edelgard to come the way she had asked for, and she could feel the tension in Edelgard’s thighs and ass, tight and quivering on her command. She was good at taking orders in a way that made Dorothea feel like she was the one getting fucked; she was the one who felt desperate, on the brink of madness. Dorothea ran her nails on the inside of Edelgard’s wrist and pushed two fingers in to the first knuckle, and Edelgard came into her mouth, fucking herself shallowly on Dorothea’s fingertips. As she promised, she let go of Dorothea’s hand. Dorothea shoved her hand between her own legs as fast as she could, getting two fingers into herself and grinding her clit against the meat of her thumb. She didn’t stop licking, either, even when Edelgard’s thighs clamped around her head, trapping her in heat and shutting her ears off. She kept going until Edelgard’s hips twisted away and her thighs fell open, freeing Dorothea. 

By then, Dorothea had already come once, but she wasn’t going to stop there. Edelgard’s pussy was spread out in front of her, each part glistening with come, and the sight of Edelgard sprawled out in bed, her chest heaving and her nipples caught between her own fingers, twisting them while she watched Dorothea get herself off, had Dorothea hot and wet and then coming, chanting, “Edie, Edie,” as though it was Edelgard’s fingers filling her. She pressed her face into Edelgard’s thigh and bit down on the soft part. She couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t not leave a mark. Edelgard’s hands caught Dorothea's face and stroked her cheeks.

When she could see straight again, she moved higher up the bed so they were next to each other. Edelgard rolled to make room for her. She looked relaxed and untroubled, still on her way down—rare, Dorothea thought, and a special treat for her alone.

“Hi there, Your Majesty,” Dorothea said. 

“Hi,” she said. She kissed Dorothea’s cheek and the corner of her mouth; her nose, too, unexpectedly. “How was I?” 

“Perfect. I thought you didn’t care for praise.” 

“It’s not that I don’t care for praise, but I dislike vacuous statements said only to puff me up,” she said. “I like it when it comes from you.” 

“Do you? Your hair is like undyed silk, your eyes like violets, your face the finest in Fodlan, your lips pinker than the prettiest rose, your hands stronger than any dragon’s paw—” She waited for Edelgard to finish rolling her eyes to say, “And I like it when you let me take care of you.” 

All her annoyance dropped away instantly. “Thank you for caring for me. How are you?” 

“Mm. I’m good. Very good. I think I’m ready to sleep. You won’t mind, will you?” 

“Not at all. Rest all you’d like.” Edelgard fluffed the pillows and straightened out the blankets so Dorothea was covered, stopping occasionally to kiss. Dorothea noticed she wasn’t getting in bed, but searching for her clothes. She had on her slip and dress, but her underthings had been lost somewhere in the blankets and sheets. After another round of searching did nothing, she went to get a washcloth and wiped Dorothea’s face and hands clean. She sat on the bed and stroked her hair until Dorothea drifted off. 

#

Her dreams were vicious and unpleasant. She had been in some ugly battles at this point. People stampeding over the injured, people falling in mud made from dirt and blood, the glaze of pain in people’s eyes as she killed them, when she had no right to. She reached out to an Edelgard in her dream, an Edelgard with an axe even larger than Aymr and dressed in red armor, dripping with blood—blood that bubbled out of the ground, lapping at her feet, rushing up to her neck… 

When she woke up, it was sunset. Edelgard and Hubert were talking with each other. The lamps had been turned on. Hubert was dressed in some kind of formal get-up with a swishing cape. He stood by the desk where Edelgard was still sitting. Edelgard was in her plain dress, still wrinkled from her time in bed. Dorothea had a strange, lurching feeling. The first was that her dream hadn’t been wrong: by the time Edelgard united Fodlan, they really would be drenched in blood. The second was her thinking with her cunt. She wondered if Edelgard had ever found her underwear, or if she was sitting there, having her meeting with Hubert bare-assed. She hoped so. 

As her senses came back, she realized the conversation between Edelgard and Hubert was not the conspiratorial whispering she was used to, but a fight. She had a better view of Hubert’s face, but she could see Edelgard clutching her quill in her fist and holding tension in her neck and shoulders. Her fingers drummed an impatient beat on the desk.

“… hasn’t even been a month,” Edelgard said. 

“I’m very sorry, Your Majesty.”

“After all this time, you still can’t call me by name.” 

“Edelgard. My Emperor. If I may speak honestly?” 

“Say it, you wretch.” 

Both Dorothea and Hubert flinched. “My father is dead due to personal resentments. That’s all.” 

“I have plenty of reasons to resent many of those we work with, yet I have not taken to poisoning their wines.” 

“If we plan to rid the world of the nobility, we should start doing so more regularly. Your man-wretch will gladly show you his technique.”

“What I don’t understand is what made Marquis Vestra uniquely awful in your eyes. Count Hvering is not my favorite noble by any means, but we continue to work with him, holding Linhardt as leverage. Your father loved you. We could have insured his loyalty using you similarly. Would you have resented being held as such?” 

“No, Your Majesty. As I said, it’s a personal matter.” 

“Please, tell me what these personal matters are, so I know which of our allies to keep you from.” 

“Your Majesty, I must decline.” 

“Please.”

“My answer will upset you,” he said through his teeth. 

“This is the first time in years that you’ve surprised me in a bad way,” Edelgard said. “Please, Hubert. Have I been overworking you? Is there something between you and your father I overlooked?” She took Hubert’s hand. Dorothea watched the discomfort snake up both of their arms. She let go right away. “I’m sorry. When I’ve been intimate with Dorothea, my emotions… I’ll control myself better,” she said, clearly mortified. 

They were both looking away from each other. Hubert met Dorothea’s eyes, then looked down at the floor. 

“I don’t hold it against you,” he said. 

“Thank you, my old friend.” 

The silence between them inched along. Dorothea wondered if she should get out of bed, but all of her clothes had been folded at the end of the bed, and she didn’t need Hubert seeing her naked yet again, even if it was to diffuse the tension. Guiltily, she was relieved that even Hubert was not of one mind with Edelgard. 

“My answer may bring back unpleasant memories.” 

“The truth is often unpleasant between us.” 

“He brought you your dinner for an entire year, and not once thought to… Such a thing cannot be forgiven, Your Majesty.” 

“I see. I didn’t remember.” Again, they looked away from each other. This time, Edelgard was the one who looked up to the bed. Seeing Dorothea awake, she said, “Let’s put this behind us. Would you like to join Dorothea and me for dinner?” 

“I’ve eaten already with my father. I’ll ask the kitchen to send something to your rooms right away. If you’ll excuse me, Lady Edelgard. Dorothea.” 

He left the room. Dorothea got out of bed, putting her clothes back on. 

“Did we wake you?” Edelgard said. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Did you sleep well?” 

“Honestly, no.”

“I see. Are you hungry?” Before Dorothea could find a way to dodge the question, Edelgard lowered her head. “Something about the sight of me causes people to lose their appetites, these days. It’s too late for me to have regrets for myself, but I do worry for my friends and what I’ve asked of them. Let me show you to your rooms.”

“Edie, don’t send me away. I’ll watch you eat. I don’t mind.” She made a show of stretching her arms and shoulders. It was the first time she had spent this many hours with Edelgard without the two of them being in a classroom or on the road. It felt almost natural to spend this much time with her. “Why don’t we move to somewhere else? That desk looks uncomfortable.”

“I stayed there to watch you,” she said. There was a mirror, Dorothea saw, on the desk, angled towards the bed. An electric shiver went over her skin. The shock of being a valued thing. 

“Come on,” Dorothea said. “Let’s go look at the garden.” 

They sat by the window. Edelgard took the purple chair, and Dorothea Hubert’s chaise. The garden was alive with winter and early spring blooms. Dorothea recognized some dogwood buds, tightly furled, on the branches, but many of the others were unknown to her. 

“What are those flowers over there called?” Dorothea said. “I’ve never seen them.” 

“Hellebores. Someday,” she said, “I’ll have this crypt torn apart. We’ll move somewhere else.” 

“Really.” It seemed impossible, but she was getting used to impossible things happening. Given time, she’d probably come to expect it. She reached over to take Edelgard’s hand. “I’ll look forward to it.”


	6. night still comes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scenes from five kind of okay, actually very bad years.

Like all couples—Dorothea knew she was reaching when she called them a couple—they had an outward face. There was Edelgard on her way to conquest, Edelgard giving speeches before the enemy, Edelgard giving speeches to her army, Edelgard killing, and so on, while Dorothea stood in the background or winked at her across a war table. In front of their friends at Garreg Mach, they continued as usual, keeping their hands to themselves until they were alone, as though there was nothing but war on their minds. 

Every few months, Edelgard returned to Enbarr on business. Hubert and Dorothea went with her. These days, Ferdinand almost always came, too, in order to badger various lords in person for his and Edelgard’s various causes. When Lysithea was in a spell of vigor or wanted to harangue a scholar or mage in person, she would come along. It was fascinating to watch Lysithea and Edelgard talk: they went from theories of magic (Dorothea was Edelgard’s tutor in this one area) to foods they hoped to eat while in the city to impassioned arguments on social policy. That was well and good and mostly beyond Dorothea’s interests, but she had seen, a few times, their conversations take strange turns: Lysithea would say, rather baldly, “Given the number of Crests we have—” or, “The research we’re doing isn’t _just_ for me, I’ll have you know,” or, “I’ve been looking into your family records, since they’re public,” and Edelgard would draw away instantly. Lysithea would redden in the face as the conversation became increasingly circular and evasive. “It’s pathetic to run away,” Lysithea would say, and Edelgard would respond, “I don’t know what you mean. Weren’t we talking about property law reform?” At least Dorothea wasn’t the only one Edelgard ran away from. 

While they were in the city, Dorothea made it a point to see shows at the opera house, if they were in season. Edelgard often went with her, and Ferdinand, and Hubert, who never stopped working unless Ferdinand begged him to pay attention. They’d hold hands and watch the show, and afterwards, they’d attend the afterparty together. 

More than the shows, it was the parties Dorothea really loved. Edelgard was quick to discover a secret perk of being a stranger among an opera company: she could take on a different role among these actors and be understood to be playing. Her preferred role, as it turned out, was a pompous, slightly stupid noble. She had a special black and red military suit and plain tiara that she wore to the opera to avoid attracting the attention her regalia inevitably drew, and the change in costume led to other changes in behavior. 

“I’m afraid I stay locked up with my paperwork and only occasionally see the battlefield,” she said to one guest. And to another: “I must relay your proposal to Prime Minister Raban. He will certainly understand more of your policy changes than I. I only care for the hunt. Have you ever been to the Radiant Woods in Aegir? I go there with my steadfast companion, Morning Glory.”

“Isn’t it a shame that a pretty face like this has no mind for policy?” Dorothea said, intervening before Edelgard could go full Ferdinand. After so much time with him, Edelgard was fully fluent in horse talk. “All this one does is swing an axe and fuss over her hounds.” 

“I hunt with an axe, the only true noble instrument,” Edelgard said, and Dorothea burst into laughter. The sharpness returned to Edelgard’s eyes as she broke character. “Shoo, Dorothea. You’re ruining my fun.” 

“Who are you even trying to _be_?” Dorothea said, squeezing her cheek. “Should I tell Ferdie how much our dear emperor admires him?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a kindhearted fool who puts forth her best efforts. Who is this ‘Ferdie’ you speak of? Someone else who loves to hunt?” 

Everything was different in Enbarr. Edelgard casually put herself on Dorothea’s arm; she smiled at Dorothea’s friends and greeted them as though they were well-acquainted. She remembered people’s names and the roles they had made their reputations on. Her hand fanned out on Dorothea’s bare back as she continued playing her part. It was hard for Dorothea to tell if the possessive touch and way Edelgard’s eyes swept over her constantly was just acting or the real thing. 

When she was acting, Edelgard did almost anything Dorothea asked: kiss, tell jokes, even feed Dorothea crackers. They did that all the time as a way of Edelgard spoiling her, but the charge was different, like they were putting on a show of just how much power Dorothea held over the emperor. 

Towards the end of the party, Edelgard came over to Dorothea while she was talking with two members of the troupe about the performance. Dorothea could have told her off—Edelgard would’ve put up with it in this role—but she asked, instead, for her to sit in her lap. Edelgard smoothed her skirt and sank into place—Dorothea felt her pulse in her face. Edelgard looked unembarrassed and only a little red from alcohol; she used Dorothea like a throne with one arm around Dorothea’s neck, and Dorothea felt it as a burning collar. Dorothea had to ask Edelgard to get her some wine after a few minutes. She couldn’t take it anymore. Her thighs were aflame from where Edelgard’s weight had been, and her nipples hard and aching. 

At the end of the night, Dorothea took Edelgard back to the emperor’s bedchambers. She pushed Edelgard into one of the couches—a smooth, black leather object that cleaned up well, a very good quality for upholstery to have—and kissed her with tongue and teeth. Dorothea wanted everything: to bite Edelgard’s breasts until they were red while somehow also having Edelgard fuck her from behind. In her perfect fantasy, Edelgard would be wearing garters. They’d have a bed in a house that was not this palace. The war would be over, and Dorothea would be wearing white. 

Since it was not her perfect fantasy world, she settled for sinking her teeth into Edelgard’s chest while rubbing Edelgard through her tights. On most nights, Edelgard liked fast and rough pressure, getting head, or riding Dorothea’s face. She rarely asked for the type of penetration Dorothea craved, and Dorothea rarely asked to have her that way. She knew, though, after an opera party, Edelgard would let Dorothea take nearly whatever she wanted. 

“Edie, let me fuck you,” she said, flexing her hand side to side against her center. “Let me use your cock on you. I’ll make it good for you, I promise.” 

It only took a few seconds of thumbing at her clit to get Edelgard to say, “Go get it.”

The toy in question was at the bottom of Dorothea’s bag, a polished wooden phallus already set in its harness. It was bigger than the one Edelgard usually took, but Dorothea was certain they could make it work with some of the oil she kept. She returned to the couch and had Edelgard put the harness on her. Edelgard licked the toy a few times and, without prompting, took it into her mouth. Her hands held tight onto Dorothea’s ass as she wet it, first licking the head and then opening her lips around it. Dorothea didn’t mind the view or the rough way Edelgard handled her ass, but she was too impatient to let Edelgard stay there too long. She pushed her off. 

“On your hands and knees,” Dorothea said, spilling oil onto her hands and applying it to the strap. She could still feel the warmth of Edelgard’s mouth on the wood. Once Edelgard was in position, Dorothea almost fell on top of her. She didn’t plunge in, not yet. Instead she guided the strap-on between Edeglard’s folds, angling it so the head came against Edelgard’s clit. She tangled one hand in Edelgard’s hair and pulled and thrust at the same time. She was dizzy with power—and wine. That played a part, too. But mostly the power she felt in taking the motion, in being allowed to take it. The sight of Edelgard’s pussy parted around the wooden toy and wet for it, wet for Dorothea, made her head pound. She felt good like this: powerful, in control, and capable of giving so much more than she thought. 

“Ah—that’s good. You’re perfect, Dorothea. Don’t stop.” Dorothea wound more hair around her fist and yanked until Edelgard’s back arched. “Dorothea! Please, Dorothea—” She turned her face into the back of the couch to muffle her sounds. 

“I wonder what people would say if they knew how much you want commoner cock,” Dorothea said. “Your ministers would probably get off—” Edelgard’s hips stilled. Too much, then. She took Edelgard’s breast in her hand and massaged it to divert her attention. “Sometimes I wish you were mine. You’re mine now, but I wish you’d be mine all the time. I’m already yours if you want me to be.” 

“Dorothea,” she said, her voice low. “Stop talking. Make me come.”

Dorothea dug her nails into Edelgard’s breast and pushed forward again, this time hard enough that Edelgard’s elbows shook. She kept at it, angling her hips up, until Edelgard’s thighs clamped tight around Dorothea’s cock and her head almost knocked into Dorothea’s; she moved just in time. And once she came, Dorothea knew she could let go. She could get two good orgasms out of Edelgard before it turned painful, and the gap between the first and second was when Dorothea could say anything she wanted, even ‘I love you,’ without getting lectured about the war, their potential upcoming deaths, and the importance of remaining clearheaded during wartime. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t like watching Edelgard, naked before her, twist and writhe on her command. Or that she didn’t love the way how Edelgard’s mouth fell open when Dorothea breached her opening with the strap-on, or the high, breathy noises she made in her throat when Dorothea slid her oiled finger against her clit. After Enbarr, they’d go back to the war, and she needed something more than just her loyalty to keep her fighting. Not very clearheaded of her, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t clearheaded on the battlefield; she had her emotions tucked away under the covers of her martial duty. That type of thinking was an emptiness, a scraped out hollow inside her mind. She’d take anything else. 

“How’s my progress?” Edelgard said when Dorothea slowed. 

“Be patient,” she said. “It’s not a competition. You’re not going to win any territory by taking the whole thing.” 

“I see this as purely a personal conquest,” she said, and the animal part of Dorothea’s brain wanted to bottom out right there. An indecent noise escaped from her chest. She seized the inside of Edelgard’s thighs and pulled them further apart, and she sank the rest of the way in as though the space was made for her. Edelgard grabbed the back of the couch. Not in pain, but to steady herself against the intense sensations. She put her hand near Edelgard’s shoulder, and Edelgard held onto it right away. “Is this too much?” 

Edelgard shook her head. Her eyes were shut and her cheek against her forearm. “You feel good. Very good. You always treat me well.”

“I do, don’t I? It’s because I love you. And because I’m nice.” 

On the way back out, she found an angle that made Edelgard’s eyes shoot open and her knees spread further apart. It was easier to get the angle if she hiked her leg onto the arm of the couch and draped herself over her back, even if it made her strokes shorter. That was fine. This way she could kiss Edelgard’s ear and neck. She kept one hand against Edelgard’s clit, rubbing it at a slow, gentle pace, out of time with her thrusts. 

“Why don’t you say it back, Edie? Say it for me.” It was cruel to herself to do this. Hearing Edelgard say yes here was a yes of the body, not of the whole woman. Still, she didn’t get many chances to hear it, and she wanted those words more than nearly anything. When Edelgard took too long, she shifted her hips away from the right angle. “Answer me, Your Majesty.”

Edelgard bit into her thumb as Dorothea pulled out, then slid all the way back in. “Dorothea! Dorothea…” She was beautiful and also more or less incoherent. Dorothea took her hand back from Edelgard’s to support her head. It also let her hold onto the warmth of Edelgard’s hair, pulling at it until Edelgard’s back arched. 

“Let’s start in parts,” Dorothea said to help her out. “What parts of me do you like? My voice, my face, this cock?” 

“Your tits,” she said, straight to the point as always. Dorothea gave her ear an encouraging kiss. “Your hands, your mouth—oh, that feels good, Dorothea, you’re so good…” 

“I like my mouth on you, too,” she said and ground harder into Edelgard’s stuffed cunt. “What else?” 

“Your fingers, your rings—every time you cast Thoron for me, I notice it.” Her voice sweetened then, and even though Dorothea didn’t like fighting, she liked being recognized for it, she liked being noticed. Her fingers dug tight into Edelgard’s scalp. “Every Meteor, every Arrow—”

“They’re for you,” Dorothea said, her control collapsing. “They’re always for you. I’ll always clear your way.” 

“Do it,” she said. Her arm slipped from sweat and the force of Dorothea’s thrusts, leaving her prostrate. She moaned into the couch, rubbing her breasts against the cushions for friction. Dorothea paused to get onto the couch herself, to feel more of her skin against her own. “When you’re with me, I can see so much of my empire, how it should be, for you.” Her words were, as always, perfect, and still not enough. Dorothea knew whatever Edelgard said would likely hurt her, but she hadn’t expected this kind of pain, old but still sharp around the edges. “Dorothea, I need to—” 

Her hips met Dorothea’s with frantic urgency, but Dorothea’s fingers were too slow on her clit. She wasn’t getting anywhere unless Dorothea made it so. It was a dirty trick, she knew. 

“Just tell me that you love me, and I’ll let you,” she said, and was met with silence. Edelgard’s hands turned into fists. Dorothea recognized, too, the sound of Edelgard forcing her breathing to fall into rhythm. Dorothea was close to coming herself; she needed one more thing and she’d be there. “Edie, please, I need to hear you say it. Then I’ll give you what you want. Edie, please…” 

“We have to stop,” Edelgard said, and Dorothea did, drawing the entire cock out of Edelgard. She sat on the arm of the couch. The strap-on ran wet with oil and Edelgard’s slickness—she felt ridiculous, but also like Edelgard had to be fucking with her. What else could explain it? 

“Are you really so stubborn that you won’t say it, even for me?” Dorothea said. 

“You’re getting upset, and I don’t want you to think I’m only saying what you want to hear,” Edelgard said, turning around on the couch so she could prop herself up on her elbows. Even naked and sitting in a pool of her own wetness, she managed to look dignified. “I don’t mean that I don’t—”

“Right. You don’t not love me, but you also don’t love me enough to risk trying, either. How could I forget! You use me when it’s convenient and throw me away when it’s not.” 

“I’ve never thrown you away.” 

True. She had never turned Dorothea away and took time to bring Dorothea in for tea, strategy planning sessions, and her private meetings with Hubert—the even more private ones, now that Ferdinand, Lysithea, and their other friends regularly joined her nightly debriefs. And she always made time for Dorothea. It wasn’t like when she was in school, disappearing for weeks on end. When they were physically apart, there were letters. Edelgard was, as it turned out, a prolific letter writer, even if half the letter was just observations she made about people she met, friends she had tea with, the landscape. She made Dorothea feel self-conscious about only ever writing on and on about her feelings and things she wanted to do to Edelgard’s body. 

Honestly, that was probably love for Edelgard: time and attention. 

“You’re right,” Dorothea said. “I’m being small.”

Edelgard took Dorothea’s hand and said, “It’s normal to want to be loved.” 

It was hardly reassuring to hear it from Edelgard, who seemed to run on determination alone. 

Dorothea had that scrubbed bare feeling again. Edelgard’s face was all tight, and Dorothea knew what she’d say. They had this fight the month before, and two months before that, too. They couldn’t go more than a few weeks without having at it. It almost felt scripted, except no script had ever hurt her so much. “And now you’re going to tell me that if I need love, then I should go look for some other lover, since anyone else would do—”

“That is _not_ what I said. I said I wouldn’t be upset if you found someone to tend to some of your emotional and physical needs. I can’t demand exclusivity from you when—” 

“I wish you’d think the other way around, too,” she said, cutting Edelgard off. “If this is only supposed to be physical for you, then you could ask anyone else. Hubie could tend to you just as well as I could. Maybe even better, since he’d never be as pathetic as me.” 

“All right, you’ve proven your point,” Edelgard said, pulling her hand away. “This war might go on for another three or four years at this rate. I admire your loyalty, but what good would it be to keep waiting?” 

“I don’t want to think about waiting anymore.” She was crying again, as she always did lately. It was no longer horrifying to cry in front of Edelgard, only embarrassing. What would Edelgard cry for? Not peace, that was for sure, nor any gods or saints. Since Dorothea had known her, she had never shed a tear. Not for hundreds or thousands of dead men on the field, not for dead children in the villages, not for her dead captains and lieutenants, not even for a beloved horse. “I’d give up anything for you. I’d change my whole person if it meant you’d love me. Why can’t you be honest with yourself for my sake? I should’ve fallen in love with a rock.” 

“That’s incredibly upsetting to hear,” she said, her brow knit with worry. Her hand settled, gently, on Dorothea’s shoulders, rubbing them. 

Dorothea wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, trying to force herself to stop. “You might be worse than a rock. Rocks don’t make me cry this often.” 

“I’m more upset by you wanting to change for me,” she said. She unbuckled the harness from Dorothea and cast it aside. “You shouldn’t need to. I don’t want you to be someone else. It’s not worth it.” 

Too late for that, Dorothea almost said. She had already changed so much of herself for Edelgard. She made nice with nobles for her sake; she took the general’s epaulets; she fought even past the point when she thought she’d be sick. More a year of this already, and she couldn’t imagine stopping. 

Edelgard got a handkerchief from the pocket of her jacket, crumpled on the floor, and used it to wipe Dorothea’s face. She pushed Dorothea’s chin up with a finger. Dorothea hadn’t even realized she had curled in on herself. 

“You might hate the part of you that needs love, but I admire it,” Edelgard said. 

“Really. You admire this?” she said, gesturing at herself with a dry laugh. 

“You’re still willing to give your whole heart to someone, even when it’s insensible. I’ve given myself to my path. I want to live long enough to give you what you’ve asked for. I want to be able to go back to who I was—or who I would be, if I didn’t have to be this.” They were having a depressing statements kind of night all around. Before Dorothea could properly respond, Edelgard said, “Why don’t we go to bed? I can tend to you, if you’re still…” 

She put a hand on Dorothea’s thigh. 

“Even after that mood killer?” 

“You say so, but you’ll ask for me anyway.” There was a persuasive cut to her smile. Dorothea scoffed. She couldn’t be so easily swayed. 

Edelgard helped her off the couch and took her up to the bed. The bed was a familiar location for reconciliation. First a few good night kisses, then Edelgard started kissing her shoulders and clavicle. The heat from before hit Dorothea again. Edelgard rolled Dorothea’s nipples between her fingers, and Dorothea gave up on pretending she wasn’t going to ask for Edelgard to take her after all. 

“But don’t tease me,” she said. “You have to play fair.” 

She was wet enough to take two fingers right away. Edelgard wasted no time in getting a third and fourth in, folding her hand in tight to get as much inside as she could. She rocked her hand into Dorothea, her thumb bumping into the side of her entrance. “Get it in,” Dorothea said. Her vision blurred. “Get it in me, fuck me, Edie, take me, please—”

“I’m,” Edelgard said, her voice unsteady with arousal. “I’m not certain it will fit today.” She made a few good attempts, rotating her wrist and folding her hand even more until the widest point of her knuckles pushed against Dorothea like a threat or a kiss. Dorothea felt it as pressure, then a kind of loss of sanity. Her heels hit Edelgard’s back and shoulder, and Edelgard endured it without stopping. She pushed Dorothea’s legs further apart and pulled her closer. 

After the sixth or seventh attempt, Edelgard gave up and went back to fucking Dorothea with four fingers. All of Dorothea’s attention collapsed to her stretched out hole, the drag of fingers and knuckles on her walls, and wherever Edelgard’s mouth ended up. Kisses and bites on the insides of her thighs, overlapping with marks she had left the night before, or licking around her fingers to find a place for her tongue when Dorothea was so full already. She grabbed Edelgard’s hair and pulled her head further up. 

#

Most of her life was not Enbarr. Most of her life was either at the monastery or on the field. 

The war went on. It went, just as Edelgard the pessimist predicted, in fits. Powerful friendships and alliances made with House Gloucester, but aside from a token number of soldiers, nothing that spoke of true commitment. Ordelia was signed to the Empire. Claude continued to play games and dance around his intentions. 

In spring, at the beginning of the third year of the war, Edelgard launched a new attack into Faerghus. Quick gains in Rowe and Western Faerghus were followed by slow, drawn-out war at southern border of Charon. The closer they got to Lord Charon’s estate, the more dangerous the fighting became. Charon’s soldiers were well-fed, well-trained, and had no love for the Empire. Even their skirmishes felt like someone pointing a knife at her throat. 

A month into their spring campaign, her battalion was ambushed. She looked up and the sky was full of pegasus knights. She had been put in charge of defending the left flank from potential infantry threats from the fort, and failed to notice the pegasus riders hiding in the hills. The most awful moment came when a pegasus knight shrugged off her Thoron with ease. She knew it was likely over. Pegasus knights resisted magic, and their lances had superior reach over her sword. She didn’t flinch as the pegasus knight circled her. Not until she saw the knight was her Ingrid. The spell she had been about to call left her mouth. Her hands drifted to the ground. And she saw Ingrid recognize her; saw the lance veer to the side. 

The flat of Ingrid’s lance hit her head hard enough to send her to the ground. The blade cut into her shoulder and neck, not painfully. Ingrid pulled her arm back, surely meaning to skewer Dorothea to the earth, but she hesitated. She took her javelin and threw it into Dorothea’s leg, then flew away. It had been a well-tossed javelin, sliding between the plates in her armor and into the soft part of her thigh. By the time Bernadetta’s archers scattered the rest of the pegasus knights, Dorothea had lost almost all of her battalion and was nearly unconscious from blood loss. 

“I’m fine,” she said afterwards in the healing tent. “I was just surprised.” 

#

She was laid up for another week. All of her friends came by to talk and joke. Linhardt, as always, was the worst. 

“I wish I could get stabbed in the leg,” he said with a sigh. “I want stay in bed all week and research without anyone making me do drills or asking me for orders.” 

“Get back out there and get stabbed, then,” she said. “Or find me something sharp and I’ll help you out.” 

“Hmm. No thanks.”

One benefit of her time in recovery meant that she and Manuela could talk for hours. Edelgard came by a few times and then slinked away awkwardly when Dorothea kept grabbing onto Manuela to ask about that story about the property manager or what had happened to the maestro, if she was replaced like the director was always threatening to or if she had stuck it out. Manuela stayed with her late in the night, often with a tumbler of whiskey she’d sip from. She let Dorothea have some, too, sighing, “I really shouldn’t get you in the habit.” Dorothea didn’t mind. She knew Manuela drank less during the war to keep her skills and focus sharpened, and wasn’t going to stop her from indulging during her off-hours now. 

“I shouldn’t monopolize you from our emperor so often, or she’ll sic Hubert on me,” Manuela said when Edelgard excused herself for the third time that night. 

“Hubie won’t do worse than give you an upset stomach,” Dorothea said. “And she’ll probably like that I’m spending time with you. She keeps telling me to be on the lookout for an eligible suitor who can sweep in and tend to my ‘emotional needs.’” 

“She _wouldn’t_. Some people don’t mind their lovers having others on the side, but I can’t imagine—she’s always seemed the possessive type, if you ask me.” 

Dorothea laughed uncomfortably. She had said too much. “It’s nothing like that. I think she’s worried she’ll die before she can—” ‘Find the time to love me’ were the next incredibly pathetic words on her lips. It was too depressing to admit. It was humiliating enough to be told, repeatedly, by Edelgard that she was beautiful and deserving of love, but wouldn’t get it just yet. Manuela was her oldest friend, but she didn’t want someone else to point out how unfair her situation was. “Promise herself to me fully.” 

Manuela clicked her tongue. Despite how much she had drunk, she was still clear-eyed enough to fix Dorothea with a look that felt too knowing. “In love, nothing is fair, is it. Is everything all right?” 

“All right? I’m grand. I get to spend time with my favorite professor and I don’t have to prepare for the next battle—what’s there to complain about?” She took the tumbler from Manuela and sipped. “Would you want to join us for a night? I could talk Edie into it.” 

“Honey, a woman like me? You two couldn’t handle it.” 

“I don’t know, Manuela. I’ve had Edie in ways you’d blush to imagine. We’d find a way.” 

“I… all right, you win. I won’t pry.” Manuela went red, and Dorothea knew she had pushed too far. She took the tumbler back and took two long gulps. Then, steadier, she said, “I have to ask, as your physician. You’ve been pushing yourself on the field, haven’t you?” 

“We all push ourselves,” she said. 

“Dear, I know you. You sing when you’re happy, you sing when you’re sad, you sing when you’re bored. It’s one thing to not have the time for the whole suite of exercise—goddess knows, I don’t. But I’ve watched people lose their minds to this war, and I’m worried for all of you. If you’re silent for other reasons, I’d like to know.” 

“Thank you, Manuela.” She hadn’t even realized she had gotten out of practice. Songs didn’t seem so important anymore. She hummed her favorite operas to herself when she was working a dull task and read her old sheet music and folios, a mash of her personal stash and ones she had borrowed and had no intention of returning, late at night, when she wasn’t writing letters or sending missives, but nothing made her think of committing her voice to song. “I’m lucky to have you in my life. Let’s spend more time together! I can sit and listen to your dates, and you can listen to me complain about Edie.” 

For the rest of their time together, they drank and gossiped about the troupe. Edelgard came back late at night. 

“You’re giving a patient alcohol?” she said, but otherwise didn’t grouse too much. She kept a respectful distance from Dorothea, as though Manuela was Dorothea’s mother and she had to make a show of seeming chivalrous, and asked after her health. She was out of her plate armor and was down to a layer of chainmail and cloth padding, but she carried her helmet under her arm. What had she been doing all day? Fighting, it turned out, in a light skirmish a mile away. The blood caught in her hair said the skirmish had been less light than she was saying. 

“I should be out there,” Dorothea said. 

“You’re recuperating. You’ll be back with us soon enough. Are you comfortable?” 

“Very. Too comfortable. I’m getting restless, even! Manuela, how much longer do I have to stay here?” 

Manuela looked pained, but Dorothea ignored her. Edelgard’s smile was more reassuring, more true. 

#

The months went on. 

While fighting through a hot summer rain, she lost another battalion in the muds of Charon. She couldn’t even remember what happened. They were positioned behind Petra’s unit. She had been so worried about being ambushed, with the forest on one side and the tall hills on the other, that she had changed the formation to cover all sides equally. They marched through the too-silent woods, and an attack came from the rear, just as she had feared. The change in formation did nothing to protect her soldiers. The knights swept through them, cutting each person down like farmers reaping hay. 

Even though she hadn’t been badly hurt in the attack, Petra had her sent to the base camp for treatment. She had been sent to Manuela’s tent to be healed in private and get a change of clothes. After that, she collapsed on Manuela’s bedroll, unable to do more than stare at the thing directly in front of her and sometimes cry. Every time Manuela asked her how she was doing, she’d seize up and look around for Edelgard. “Please don’t tell Edie,” she said. “Please, don’t let her see me like this.” 

When she came to, Edelgard was there anyway. She was in the middle of cleaning Manuela’s tent, telling Manuela over and over again that she didn’t need to apologize for the mess and that she liked to keep things in order for her own sake. The hollow feeling in Dorothea disappeared. She made herself sit up.

“Here to talk strategy?” Dorothea said, trying to put on a brave smile. “I love talking tactics. And frankly, I need it.” 

“I came to check up on you,” Edelgard said. “Manuela says you’re unwell.”

She felt, instantly, on the verge of vanishing. Unwell. Those were words used to send people off. Her back and shoulders tensed, and she knew Edelgard had seen it. 

“She is unwell,” Manuela said. “We can use white magic to heal the body in hours, but the mind takes longer. And you’ve had us on a constant march since spring.” 

“I know that,” Edelgard said. Her demeanor had a marble coolness, her gaze rueful, but never stepping beyond a few shades of sadness. “There’s no one else who can take her place. Dorothea, please hang on. We need you for only a little longer. We have Charon pinned down. Will you stay?” Seeing Manuela open her mouth, she said, “I’d like to hear it from Dorothea herself.” 

Every part of her screamed that she should leave, except for her mouth. Of course she’d stay. 

Edelgard’s visit didn’t last much longer. Manuela, radiating disapproval, kept clearing her throat in the background and rearranging things pointedly until Edelgard left. 

The days bled into each other. She was assigned to the back line, then as an adjutant to support whoever needed it. Her nerves were ruined; seeing her soldiers lined up in perfect rows, she only thought of how she was marching them on not to a future, but to doom. She spent most of her nights alone to avoid waking Edelgard up with her fitful sleep. When Edelgard requested her to stay, she found it hard to rest. As tired as it was, her mind still chased more perfect formations, or saw Charon’s knights with their lances and javelins ready to take her down. It usually helped to look at Edelgard’s sleeping face, pinched by dreams, but the longer the summer campaign drew on, the harder it was to feel anything. 

In the height of summer, Edelgard took Charon. Edelgard sent Linhardt, Bernadetta, Petra, and Dorothea back to Garreg Mach to, ostensibly, heal the injured, govern the monastery, train new recruits, and take care of the orphans. Watching Linhardt screw his eyes shut every time he saw a streak of dried blood in the grass or trees, Bernadetta picking at loose threads on her uniform, and Petra muttering to herself in Brigid, like she was afraid she was going to forget how to speak it, Dorothea realized that she wasn’t the only one who was overworked. She wasn’t failing anyone by needing to rest. She relaxed a little. So this was normal. 

The moment she thought that, she rushed to the side of the road and threw up until her throat and the inside of her mouth turned chalky. 

#

Seasons went by. 

More advances in the east. Further promises from Gloucester, now acted upon: they received a steady supply of information, grain, and, tragically, the assistance and advice of Lorenz. Dorothea was back in the field, though Manuela was more forceful about taking her and others off for rest after the costly Charon campaign. Manuela never managed to get either Edelgard or Hubert to take time off. If they were ordered to rest for a month, they’d be off on another mission a week later. 

Things were difficult between her and Edelgard. There was no time to play at being other people or a normal couple. They were now stuck exactly as the people they had always been: a coolheaded emperor and a lovestruck fool. They had less time together between Edelgard’s duties on the field and in ruling and Dorothea’s dwindling enthusiasm for the war. Though Edelgard made the time to include her, Dorothea stopped attending all but the most critical meetings. She couldn’t stand how they marched little wooden pieces across a map as though they spoke of toys and not real people. At the last meeting she attended, Hubert had proposed crop destruction and blockades as the most efficient way of making Faerghus’ poorer fiefdoms yield. Lysithea was for it, reluctantly. That left Ferdinand and Dorothea to oppose it, on the grounds of being unnecessarily cruel. 

“It is cruel, but we don’t have the luxury of time,” Edelgard said, her eyes flicking down at the map. “It’ll be five years soon. It’s time to teach them the cost of resistance.” 

It wasn’t like Edelgard never listened to her, but that was the last straw for Dorothea. She had to pull back. She was doing enough for this war as it was. 

At night, when Edelgard went to stand over her desk to double check the figures or positioning or read letters, Dorothea couldn’t bring herself to ask her what she was doing. All she could do was try to pull her away—a less effective tactic as the years went by—or stay in bed and wait. 

#

The orphans Dorothea looked after were growing up well. So many of the orphans were crazy for war, as though the war hadn’t been the thing that had ruined their lives. A few of the older ones, against her wishes, had joined the army. She hadn’t meant to be a poster child for the war effort, but the orphans told her, almost every week, that her songs made them want to serve the Empire. 

“I didn’t learn how to sing for the glory of the Empire,” she said wearily. What could one say to convince them? She sang because she wanted to make them happy and because making them happy made her feel useful, like she could do something besides kill and sit in her tent for hours without being able to think or move. “There’s nothing wrong with being a farmer or a painter.” 

“But you sound so _sad_ ,” they said, awestruck. 

It was one of the cruelties of war: somehow killing made her a better interpreter of songs and characters. It didn’t matter if it was the seductress or the young cads or the spooney lovers falling for each other after talking once. Exaggerated as they were, she saw them no longer as mere vessels to showcase her talents, but people with emotions and needs she could give voice to. 

That knowledge extended to the music, too. She used to not think much of the score aside from being something to highlight her voice. Now, scanning through the musical score, she could hear brooks or birds in the place of flutes, or pre-dawn hours of watch, waiting for birdsong and watching for movement in the surrounding camp, in place of a cello. She had always viewed music and singing as a way of saving herself from a life on the street. Now she understood what all those old nobles had heard in her voice. For the first time, she could hear it for herself. 

The year before, or the year before that, Edelgard bought and shipped, as one of her grand gestures, a spinet to the monastery so Dorothea could practice her compositions. Edelgard, of course, hadn’t realized that Dorothea didn’t know how to play a spinet or a harpsichord or a piano or any instrument aside from her voice. She had to teach herself how to play. Even now, she wasn’t much good: her hands were too slow, her fingers crossed over in the wrong order, her songs sounded common and rote. A bad song written was still a song written. She kept penning lyrics, using the spinet to approximate the rest of the orchestra: piccolo here, violin here, a timpani to drum in Edelgard’s arrival on stage… 

#

She was composing, late at night, in one of the practice rooms, when trumpet after trumpet went off. People shouted and called for each other. Dorothea thought they were being ambushed, at first, and abandoned her work to run to her battle station. When she got to her position, only half the soldiers she expected were there, and only half of those were ready. 

“… a miracle,” they said. A blessing from the goddess. 

The professor had crawled out of the river and walked back into the monastery and into the emperor’s arms, they said. 

A miracle.


	7. chosen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard gets her head in the game.

In six months, the war was won. Just as Edelgard always said, with the professor at her side, she was unstoppable. No more talk of total war, no more brooding long nights. They cut through Fodlan at a maddening pace: sent Claude running, killed Dimitri on the Tailtean Plains, severed Rhea’s head from her body. 

Edelgard returned to Enbarr for the victory march and parade. She had barely gotten back to the palace before she and Hubert started scheming again. Enbarr was too far to manage all of Fodlan, and with Faerghus in such bad condition, a more direct and responsive management style was needed. She couldn’t do that from Enbarr, where it’d take at least two weeks for letters to make it back and forth from Fhirdiad. At the end of the month, she would relocate to Garreg Mach. 

Lysithea was left in charge of Enbarr and Adrestia while Edelgard, Hubert, the professor, and Ferdinand worked on repairing Faerghus. Linhardt took his position in the new Crest Research Institute, with Hanneman as one of his fellow researchers. Bernadetta, on Hubert’s orders, was sent to different parts of Adrestia and the Alliance to scout out how each region was doing. Caspar gave up his title and his post, and would become a wanderer; the Ashe boy he had become friends with would join him once he settled things in Rowe. Edelgard had signed laws to release Brigid from Adrestian rule, and Petra would soon be back to take the throne. Manuela stayed on as Edelgard’s physician. And Dorothea stayed where she was. 

#

Even after Byleth came back, Dorothea didn’t think anything would change. She was the only one who thought so: everyone else, even Hubert, was excited. Byleth was only one person, Dorothea reasoned. What difference could they make? 

Within days, the frustration and clamped down fear hanging over Garreg Mach lifted. Edelgard was no longer discouraged. She took tea outside instead of at her desk; joining her and Hubert for conversation was no longer entering frightful discussions of assassination, doom, and war, but a friendly, if intense, back-and-forth with two overly-curious, generous friends. Seeing Edelgard, Hubert, and Byleth take their meals together at the dining hall made Dorothea’s chest twinge. It reminded her of her schooldays, when she couldn’t understand how to separate Edelgard from Hubert. She knew that if she went to the trio, they’d welcome her, and even smother her with affection, but she felt left out of the group, or at least, that she was peripheral to them. 

Edelgard picked up her charcoal and sketchpad after setting them aside for nearly two years. Instead of squirreling her sketches away, she let Dorothea watch her draw, though sometimes she’d complain and make her look at something else. They could tease each other again—whether that was because Dorothea was happier, too, or because Edelgard no longer felt as weighed down, Dorothea didn’t know. She liked to think it was both. Calling Edelgard Your Majesty felt the way it did before, like she was poking fun at her bigheaded, demanding girlfriend, instead of addressing the Emperor of Adrestia. 

Why, she thought, couldn’t Edelgard have been like this the whole war? What difference did Byleth make, and how?

After Rhea was killed, after the first night of mad celebration, after the second night’s uninhibited drinking party, after the third night’s more sober and formal acknowledgement of the bloodshed and sacrifices, followed by more drinking—on the night before they were due to march back to Enbarr, they spent hours in front of the bonfire, holding hands and kissing, taking breaks to stare at each other. 

“Is this real?” Edelgard kept asking, feeling Dorothea’s face with her fingertips. 

Dorothea had many answers, all of them some variation of yes. But towards dawn, she could feel a pulse of fear through the haze of celebration. She knew the sunrise meant the moment was ending. By daylight, there’d be other demands for Edelgard’s attention. All of her responsibilities would return, and with it, her burdens. “I don’t know,” she said. “Are you?” 

In response, Edelgard looked turned somberly to the horizon. Her hand went, by instinct, to the deep scars under her left breast. “I must be,” she said. “And so are you.” 

#

Edelgard arranged an official meeting for the two of them in her office, a time that was conveniently right before her scheduled tea break. Their meetings were always informal affairs. Edelgard set her crown aside and sat on the same side of the desk as Dorothea. She offered her one of three positions: a position in the newly created Ministry of Citizen Welfare, a continued command in the army, and a job with the Ministry of Religion. 

“The Ministry of Religion?” Dorothea said, unable to stop her skeptical laugh from coming out. “Edie, what am I going to do there?” 

“We planned to abolish it, but Manuela pointed out we’ll still need to manage the faithful. It’d be yours to shape as you please,” Edelgard said. 

“I see.” She could tell Edelgard had official write ups and offer letters and a sheet with a table detailing the benefits and salaries of each position on her person. Her hand was doing the twitchy thing when she wanted to slam the papers on the table as a triumphant power move. “It’s kind of you to offer me work, but I’d like to return to being a private citizen.” 

“I can’t blame you. The last five years of war…” 

“If we didn’t fight, we wouldn’t have your new world,” Dorothea said. “But I think I’ve done my civic duty at this point. So you understand.” Edelgard looked more and more morose as she spoke. Dorothea brushed Edelgard’s hair out of her face. “Don’t look so sad. I’m refusing your offer because I’d like to see what else I can do in this new world. It should be exciting! No more nobles, no more war… except for against…” 

“I’m glad to hear you have enough confidence in your opportunities to refuse me. I’d like you to spend your time as you wish without any concern for war.”

“It’s hard if you can’t enjoy that, too.” 

“I already am,” she said, looking straight at Dorothea. Dorothea had to look away before she started to blush. “The last thing we need to address before we can have tea is whether you’re going with Petra and Caspar to Brigid.”

“Oh, that. I’m not planning on going just yet. Maybe next year.”

Edelgard sighed and rested her head on her fingertips. “By next year, she’ll be as tied up as I am, if not more. I don’t envy her position. You have few political affiliations, and the news of our relationship hasn’t made it abroad, so—” 

“I’d make a perfect spy, hmm?” she said, winking. 

“— _so_ you and Caspar will be free to spend time with Petra as you wish,” Edelgard said. “I should’ve asked Hubert to find you a post. You think similarly.” 

Someone knocked on the door. Usually Edelgard would have yelled back, “I’m busy.” Instead she said, “Come in, my teacher.”

It was the professor, holding a stack of papers. Just Byleth now. For whatever reason, when they came back from their five-year long slumber, their shirt had ripped at the navel and chest, and they had cut all of their other shirts to match. They looked at Dorothea and Edelgard and said, “Am I interrupting, El?” 

“I’m persuading Dorothea to go to Brigid with Petra. She’s being stubborn—”

“‘El?’” Dorothea blurted out. “Byleth calls you El now? What? Since when?” 

“She asked me to after the Tailtean Plains,” Byleth said. 

After Dimitri died, then. Again came the prickling sense that she was being left out. Dorothea frowned. She thought she had banished that feeling years ago. “Did you need something from Edie?” 

“Hubert said you need to look at this before tomorrow.” 

“Wonderful,” Edelgard said tartly. “I have a binder to send back to him, as well, if you wouldn’t mind taking it. No—send it to Lysithea. Make Hubert see her if he wants to know the full report.” 

“Edie, you’ll make her mad.” Lysithea pissed wasn’t nearly as cute as Claude always made it out to be. Even Dorothea felt like fleeing when she saw an angry Lysithea storming down the hall. 

“She’ll understand when she sees Hubert. Then she’ll be mad at him, instead.” Edelgard looked over to Byleth, who was waiting for them to finish their side conversation. “I’m sorry, my teacher. Please leave the papers on my desk. I have the binder here.” 

Byleth put the papers down and took the binder from Edelgard. They looked at Dorothea, then at Edelgard, then at Dorothea again. “You should go with Petra. She’s going to miss you. And if you’re not coming to the monastery with us, you’re not going to see Edelgard until winter, anyway. Be with friends while you’re waiting for her.” 

“I will,” Dorothea said with a sigh. She could resist Edelgard on her own just fine, but fielding off the professor at the same time was a challenge. And she had wanted to go already. 

“That reminds me. El, Jeralt gave me a ring and I think you could use it to help you with—” 

“Please, not this again,” Edelgard said. 

“Sweetie, what do you think Edie’s going to do with Jeralt’s…” Dorothea said, trying to put all the pieces together. She tried and tried and none of it made sense. Then she wondered if the professor thought she and Edelgard were engaged, or due to be. She was certain the answer was no herself. Edelgard’s ambitions, when it came to this relationship, were limited. From the outside… To people who hadn’t been watching them for the last five years, engagement probably seemed like a natural next step. Ha, she thought. 

“ _Please_ take the binder to Lysithea,” Edelgard said, her ears red. Byleth took the binder and waved them both goodbye. Edelgard followed them to the door and locked it behind her. “Byleth has been trying to fob that off to anyone with a hand ever since the war ended—it’s becoming disgraceful at this point. We’ve covered all the items on our agenda, so let’s make tea.” 

“If they’re so eager to get rid of it, why haven’t they tried to give me the ring?” Dorothea said. “I would’ve said yes.”

“Would you.” 

“Oh, please. Like you wouldn’t marry Byleth if they asked. The mighty Edelgard, who only sheds tears if she can put them to work on Empire building, wept over their prone body—”

“If this is what tears get me, then I’ll stop producing them immediately,” she said, reddening. 

Dorothea reached over to put her hand over Edelgard’s. The conversation was taking a strange turn, and she couldn’t figure out where she had gone wrong. “You know I’m teasing you, right?” she said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Do you remember how you used to always go on about how I should take—” 

“I was an idiot then, and I take it back,” she said. “If you’d like to go with Byleth, then go on ahead, but I shall hardly be pleased. Let’s forget about this. I shouldn’t hold you back just because of my own pettiness.”

Dorothea stared. Edelgard was _jealous_. 

“I take it back, too,” Dorothea said. “Let’s have tea.” 

She got the tins of leaves from Edelgard’s desk. As usual, Edelgard took their tea set from the cabinet and laid it out on the side table facing the garden. She heated the kettle with Fire and, when Dorothea handed her the leaves, busied herself with brewing their favorite blends. 

Dorothea knew, by now, that Edelgard was an incorrigible gossip. Any mention of feelings and courtship among her friends, and she’d drop whatever official matter she was supposed to be working on to join in. It’d be a fun distraction, and she knew Edelgard would feel better afterwards. And, she thought, something didn’t sit right with her about Edelgard and Byleth’s relationship. Not romantically or sexually, but on some other dimension she didn’t know how to name. 

“Tell me why Byleth is so eager to get rid of that ring,” Dorothea said. “It’s their only memory of their father, isn’t it? Giving it away seems reckless.” 

“I can’t claim to know what’s on their mind,” Edelgard said. “From my own observations, they’re still deciding between Jeritza and Manuela—” 

“ _No_ ,” Dorothea said. “Jeritza and Manuela? I can’t believe them. How is that a contest?”

“—and Lorenz.” 

She screamed and made it into a laugh. “You can’t just say that! Edie, what’s your proof?” 

“I saw Byleth and Jeritza fishing together…” Edelgard said, her eyes gleaming. She poured them both tea from separate pots: sweet apple for Dorothea, bergamot for herself. 

“Was he awake?” She saw the no in Edelgard’s face before she said it. Dorothea had plenty of practice spotting it by this point. She leaned back and stirred more sugar into her tea. “So you have nothing to go off, then.”

“Do you think so? Jeritza had his head in their lap.” 

“You’re lying. Does the Death Knight even sleep?” 

They talked for so long that it was a surprise when Edelgard jumped up suddenly and looked around for the time. She had taken the chair that faced away from the clock, and Dorothea hadn’t thought to warn her. 

“I’m late,” she said. She grabbed her crown from her desk and fixed it back on her head. “Will you walk with me to my meeting?” 

“Sure thing, El.” The name felt odd on her lips, and Edelgard immediately frowned. Dorothea laughed nervously. “Sorry. I thought I’d try it. Do you like it?” 

“I prefer ‘Edie’ from you. I like that you’re the only one who calls me so. You’re always saying how you’re mine, but I’m…” Her voice dwindled. She cleared her throat. “I’m yours, as well. We should go. I’ll clean up later.” 

Dorothea felt the strangest chill go over her. She followed Edelgard out of her office. 

For a while, they walked in silence. Edelgard looked over at her a few times, then kept walking without saying more. The weight of her words hung between them. 

It was true that she and Edelgard were happier with the war over, but who knew when that would end. She had handled the crown Edelgard wore, and it was a hefty, ominous object; it’d come and wreck their relationship again, she was sure of it. She could leave the matter as it was and ask about it later, but she had to take advantage of these openings. By the time Edelgard finished straightening out Faerghus, it might be too late. 

“What do you mean by ‘I’m yours?’” Dorothea said. 

“I thought the meaning was quite obvious,” Edelgard said, staring straight ahead. She had her speechmaking face on. “I mean it in the same way that you do: my heart is bound to yours. I—ah. For some time now, I’ve loved you.” 

A few years ago, Dorothea would’ve burst with pure, unfettered happiness to hear those words. She still felt that ecstasy, but at a remove. She watched the happiness streak by and turned, clear-eyed, to Edelgard. “Are you sure you know how to?” 

Edelgard stopped walking. They stopped in front of a window facing a green walking path and stood between a window and a tapestry of one of the old Adrestian emperors hunting a boar. They stood in the shade of a long, limber tree, cut apart by blades of sunlight. She always liked the sight of Edelgard in the sun. 

“Surely our time together over the last five years hasn’t been purely miserable,” Edelgard said. 

Dorothea took some of her hair into her hand. “Not all miserable. You’ve made me very—”

Edelgard put a hand on her shoulder. “I’d like you to be honest with me.” 

“Honest? All right.” Dorothea folded her hands in front of her and looked out at the branches waving in the wind. If Edelgard wanted her to ruin this good period, then she would. “You’re a sweet and giving person, but you’re not gentle, and you’re not always kind. There were times during the war when I couldn’t understand how you could treat me so callously. Will you be good to me a year from now?” 

Edelgard turned her head to the side as she thought. No answer, Dorothea noticed. No argument or defense. Dorothea had gotten her there. 

“Dorothea, when I say I love you, what do you think?” 

“I’m flattered, but I don’t know…” 

“I see. Do you love me?” 

“I do,” she said. Even now, saying so made her throat ache. There had to be something wrong with her. It was one of the sad jokes of her life that she could never be entirely, uncomplicatedly happy. She felt a familiar pressure building in her chest. “I do, but…” 

“It’s all right. It’d make little sense if we stayed together only because we fell in bed a few times when we were at the academy.” Edelgard fingered the opening of her glove. “Our circumstances have changed, and we should feel free to make new choices. I choose to be with you, but I understand if you don’t feel the same. I hope you use your time in Brigid to decide.” 

She had never realized how much she relied on Edelgard’s calm demeanor to get from one moment to the next. Seeing tears come, unbidden, to Edelgard’s eyes, Dorothea’s first reaction was one of fear, even if Edelgard blinked the tears back before they could fall. She had broken the Emperor of Fodlan. Her second one, more unkindly, was a petty sense of justice. It wasn’t as though she actually took pleasure from the situation, but there was something gratifying about seeing all of her uncertainty and doubt mirrored back at her in Edelgard’s face. So it was supposed to hurt that much after all. 

“Are you trying to run away from this?” Dorothea said. 

“I’m not running. I’m too serious about you to let either one of us to blindly walk into what’s next without considering whether proceeding makes sense. I want you to choose me for who I am now, not who I was or could have been. I have no intention for you to be trapped by the past, even if I should be part of what you leave behind.” She reached into her pocket for a handkerchief, but Dorothea was faster and handed over one of her own right away. Edelgard, looking bewildered by what was happening, blew her nose into it. “I’ll see you in the morning. Linhardt, Lysithea, and I have plans for tonight for setting up the Institute.” 

“Now there’s an odd trio,” she said. It was so odd that her first instinct was to suspect it was a lie Edelgard had created to hide from Dorothea. 

“Yes, I’ll have to put up with them squabbling all night. But what else should be done? I’d like a cure for her. It’s not fair, the hand we’ve been given, but…” Her voice thickened. She cleared her throat and blew her nose again. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with me,” she said. “I must be getting sick.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Dorothea said. “I don’t want to say goodbye to Lysithea, either.” 

“All they do is embarrass me. Why should my body care if I’m upset,” she muttered. “Let’s speak of other things. I need to collect myself.” 

Edelgard’s eyes and nose were still pink when they arrived at the sitting room where she’d take her meetings. She said a curt goodbye to Dorothea and swooped through the doors. Dorothea was left to walk back to her bedchambers alone. She should have been more upset. Instead, she felt like something had been lifted from her path. After six years, they finally understood each other in the same way. 

#

As promised, Hubert helped her with packing. He not only knew exactly what one needed for a two-month long trip to a foreign country, but also the best way to fold her dresses, how many dresses she should bring and how many dresses she should purchase in Brigid, and a list of places she could stay if she wanted to travel without Caspar or Petra to different parts of the island. 

She was also tasked with bringing gifts to Brigid, some meant for specific individuals, and others rare items from all over Fodlan that she could hand out at her discretion. He gave her a list of people she should know, their biographies, things he needed from them—

“Are you trying to make me a spy after all?” Dorothea said. 

“Whatever information you obtain will be appreciated,” he said. “I’m sure you can understand that I would not want Petra to come to harm in the early days of her reign.”

There were other things he had for her: a passport, a bilingual promissory note, and a special, intricate seal and a tamper-resistant wax he wanted her to use when she sent mail back to Enbarr. The seal was to be worn on her hand and would serve as a symbol of the Emperor if she needed credit or had to conduct business on her own. It turned into something of a production, with Hubert asking her to try the seal on with different combinations of rings on different fingers to see which one fit best. 

Twice, Edelgard tried to pull Dorothea aside, only to be shooed away by Hubert. 

“Your Majesty will only be a distraction,” Hubert said. 

“Nonsense. It’s teatime. I’ll have her back within the hour.” 

“I will return Dorothea to you after dinner. Then you will have her ‘back,’ and more than that, if it pleases you.” 

“Hubie, what?” Dorothea said. “That’s not even a real saying.” 

“You can’t monopolize her for dinner as well,” Edelgard said. “I have important matters to discuss with her.” 

“We agreed that your relationship would not interfere with our work. This is my work time. You are already interrupting my recitation of Brigid’s most significant clans. Do you want the Empire’s treasured songstress to have nothing to discuss with the clan leaders aside from asinine questions about their families or lands? You’ll make a bore out of her.” 

“You’re infuriating, Hubert,” Edelgard said and skulked away. 

“Somehow, neither of you asked me about how _I_ wanted to spend my time,” Dorothea said. “What if I wanted to have tea with Edie?” 

“Ferdinand is scheduled to have tea with Her Majesty today. I’m afraid she’s allowed her feelings about your upcoming departure blind her to matters of the state. I apologize for her weakness of spirit.” 

“Edie didn’t tell you what we talked about yesterday?” He gave her a blank look. She didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one. Hubert was one of the few people Edelgard was completely open with. He always knew about their fights or squabbles or significant moments within a few hours, if not minutes. She had never surprised him with news about their relationship before. “You didn’t think she was upset about anything last night?” 

“I assumed she was upset over you leaving for Brigid. What have you done?” 

“What have _I_ done?” she said, aggrieved. “Why do you never ask her about what _she_ has done? She said we should think about what our future should look like while we’re in Brigid. That’s on her. I would’ve been fine with staying as we are. She’s the one who wants to change things.”

His eyes narrowed. He took a step closer toward her. She didn’t flinch. “And you did not immediately move to reassure her? The fate of all of Fodlan—” 

“Is balanced on her head. You never stop reminding me.” She looked down at her hands, adorned with rings. At least half of them were from Edelgard. Little tokens of her affection and appreciation, most of them set in gold bands, though Dorothea thought her skin tone was better suited for silver. The orphan part of Dorothea appreciated the jewels because, should Edelgard and Hubert and the whole host of her friends disappear or die, she could sell the jewels and gold for cash. “I thought she had a point. We should think about it. The whole time I’ve known her, she’s been her war, and I couldn’t do anything for her. Then Byleth comes back and everything’s fixed! What point do I have in her life?” 

“Happiness,” Hubert said tentatively. He looked so uncertain about the purpose of love in one’s life that Dorothea immediately felt sympathy for Ferdinand. 

“Did you know that she never said she loved me until yesterday? How am I supposed to feel about this if it took her six years just to say that?” She could tell Hubert was going to say something almost absurdly unhelpful. She put her fingers on his lips to stop him. “It’s okay, Hubie. You can’t speak badly of Edie, even if you tried. Let’s go back to work.” 

“Very well,” he said. “But for both of your sakes, I beg you to write a letter explaining how you feel before you leave. Letters from Brigid to Fhirdiad will take at least three weeks, if not longer. Her Majesty cannot wait that long.”

“She should’ve thought of that before she took six years—”

He took a hold of her elbow. She went silent. 

“What took her so long, Hubie?” she said. “Do you know?” 

“I don’t have much experience in this area, but we’ve seen many of our officers wait until after the war to marry. For two people to have a future together, they must both be alive.” It was a sensible answer, but it wasn’t why Edelgard had waited. Dorothea knew that, even if Hubert didn’t. He was staring at her hand. “How does the seal feel?” 

She tried to twist it a few times around her finger. It was a tight and proper fit. “It’s perfect. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to propose.” 

“As long as you don’t obstruct our common goal, then why not,” he said. He had that preening look on, the one that appeared when he thought he was being funny. 

He stayed for a few hours longer. He had her sit on her trunks to close them, then made her learn three ciphers. When he was done, he gave her a book to base a cipher on, and told her he’d be back later that night to check. They had dinner together, just the two of them. He taught her some phrases in Brigid, a few tips for encoding messages, and then had to leave to take care of the rest of his business for the day. 

Once he was gone, Dorothea opened her trunks to fit some things she didn’t need Hubert knowing she was packing, then got dressed for bed. She spent an hour finishing his assignment, then went to her desk to write the letter. Hubert was right. She should leave a message before going. 

It took her three or four tries before the words felt right. 

_My dearest Edelgard,_

_By the time you read this, I’ll be on a ship to Brigid. I hope you’ll forgive me for not giving you an answer, though I have a feeling you’d think I’m not taking you seriously if I said yes (or no) right away. I know I complain about it all the time, but I like that you’re so sincere about everything._

_When you first said we should think about this, I thought you wanted me to leave. I did think about going. You’ve offered so many times that the option became tempting, even obvious. I’ve been ready for a long time, and it hurts that it took so long for you to reach me. So, though I know I’m being demanding, I’d like to know why now, of all times. Why not during your war? Would it have been so criminal for us to be happy then?_

_I’m sorry for starting this off by lecturing you. In your next letter, I want to know what you mean when you say serious. Do you mean that you want marriage, children, and a big house downtown? Come to think of it, there’d have to be enough space for Hubie and Ferdie and Lysithea and Byleth, and everyone else, too, if they decide to visit. It’d be cheaper to live in the countryside and keep an apartment in the city; you’ve given up most of your lands, so our income will be tighter once we’re no longer drawing from the imperial coffers. Or do you mean to make me your consort and parade me around like your favorite hunting hound? It’s all hypothetical, I know. But let’s say we’re both serious. What do you imagine?_

_Sorry for the ink blots. I had to borrow one of your quills. They’re cut oddly. What for? I’ll stop asking questions. I wish we weren’t busy right now. I wanted to have tea with you today._

_Love,_

_Your Dorothea_

#

In the morning, before dawn, they left for Brigid. Dorothea woke up early to braid her hair in the Brigid style, get dressed, and send off the last of her letters. Edelgard accompanied Dorothea to the docks. They went in a different carriage than usual, and Edelgard wore a plain black suit with a short red cape and no crown or other extravagant finery. Her hair was pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck, in a style that somehow made her look like a teenager and a middle age woman at the same time. She read a book on Brigid, taken from the imperial library. 

“Is there any useful information?” Dorothea said. 

“No,” Edelgard said. “It says to expect horse-sized bugs and men with eight arms.” She tossed it onto the seat next to her. “I shouldn’t have expected anything useful from something three hundred years old, but I couldn’t find anything else.” 

“I’ll have to tell you if I see anything like that in my letters.”

“Please do. Or write a short book for the palace library. I’m sure Petra will appreciate it.” She smoothed out the extra fabric on her lap with her hand. “Before we arrive, will you let me kiss you?” 

“It really won’t be our last kiss,” Dorothea said. “You don’t have to be so nervous. I’ll be back.” 

“Even if neither of us dies on our respective trips, we will still have live with our choices,” she said. She was playing with her gloves again, a strange, new nervous habit she had picked up from Hubert, no doubt; the two of them shared a vocabulary of gestures and facial expressions. She really did think Dorothea would say no. Dorothea no longer wanted her to be so gloomy. After writing her letter last night, she felt more relaxed about taking some time to think. She no longer saw it as an ending, but as an important step for their future. 

“Come on over here,” Dorothea said, patting her side of the carriage. 

Edelgard sat beside her and took Dorothea’s face in her hand. Her other took Dorothea by the waist and pulled her in. She closed the distance carefully, using her hand to keep Dorothea’s head in place as the carriage bobbed across the war-roughed roads of Enbarr. She kissed gently, lip to lip; not quite chaste, but definitely holding back. Dorothea wrapped her arms around Edelgard’s shoulders and leaned in so Edelgard could feel the heat of her bare chest and neck through her suit. Soon the hand on Dorothea’s waist was stroking her back and tracing the space under her scapula, the curve of her spine, dipping low to touch the lowest point of exposed skin. By the time the carriage wheels hit a pothole and drove them apart, Dorothea felt on the verge of asking Edelgard to take her right there. 

“You’re a tease, Edie.” 

“All the more reason to come back,” she said. 

At the docks, Petra ran up to meet their carriage. 

“Your hands are very fluent at the braids!” Petra said, her hand immediately resting on the back of Dorothea’s neck and squeezing. She reached for a hug from Edelgard, and Edelgard leaned out of the carriage just far enough to return it. “I am very happy to see you here, Edelgard. Will you be coming with your beloved?”

“I leave for Garreg Mach at the end of the week,” Edelgard said. Her face didn’t betray anything at the mention of ‘beloved.’ Her guard had come back up. “I couldn’t let you leave without seeing you off myself. Thank you for staying at my side during the war.” 

“There is no problem. I was proud to be fighting with you. You will always be my first friend in Fodlan.” She kissed Edelgard’s cheeks, and Edelgard hugged her again. “You will come visit me soon? You always say we will be standing together someday, but now we’re moving apart.” 

“Apart in distance but not in friendship. The only thing I wish we had done together was go on a hunt. Dorothea, did you know she once shot two birds with one arrow? You should go hunting with Petra, if your schedule allows. I’m eager to hear how it’s done.” 

“How are you making me do your hobbies on my vacation when you’re not even going?” Dorothea said, playing along. “I’m planning on enjoying the sun, food, and company. Unless Petra and Caspar both want to go.”

“Hell yeah, I love a good hunt,” Caspar said—he, too, had come to meet them. He pumped his arm a few times. “Not as much punching as I like, though.” 

“Oh, so I’m being overruled,” Dorothea said. 

“I’d never want for you to—”

“I’m sorry, I meant it as a joke. I want you to feel like you’re there—”

“Even so—”

“What’s going on?” Caspar said, looking between them. Dorothea kissed Edelgard’s cheek, then stepped out of the carriage. 

Her trunks were taken away by Petra and Caspar. Dorothea took some of the smaller items. Petra gave Edelgard a quick tour of the ship. Edelgard’s disguise didn’t last long. The captain and the crew fell to their knees, and Edelgard told them to all stand up and went on for a bit about how the post of the emperor was achievable by anyone with the right mindset. Given that she had won the throne by asking her father to abdicate, executing a coup, and reconfiguring Fodlan to her liking, the speech was, like many of her speeches about the power of the common man, full of passion, charisma, and conviction, and not entirely believable. 

Edelgard embraced Petra again, said goodbye to Caspar, and kissed Dorothea one last time. “I love you,” she said, in the same even way she made announcements at meetings. Dorothea felt as though Edelgard was yanking at her chest with a string. She had an envelope in her hand. “I’ve replied to the letter you left at my desk.”

“ _When_?” Dorothea said, taking the letter from Edelgard. It felt disconcertingly thick. “I didn’t even put it there until this morning.” 

“The braids are quite intricate, are they not? I like them on you. They frame your face and chest well.”

“Oh, you like how they frame my chest, all right.” Dorothea ran her finger over the envelope. “I hope you weren’t too gloomy in it. This will be my only writing from you until I get to land.” 

It was bright when the ship finally left the harbor. Dorothea stayed on deck to watch Enbarr get smaller. Because of the way the city was built, on a slanted hill facing the sea, she could see the palace from the waters. She waited until the palace was nothing more than a bright speck. Then she opened the letter. 

_My dearly beloved Dorothea,_ it began. The wind threatened to tear the letter from her hands. It took her a while to find a place on the ship that was both sheltered and light enough to see. 

_Apologies for answering your letter while you’re in the next room. I discovered it on my desk when I woke and couldn’t stop myself._

_Regarding the quills: Hubert and I taught ourselves to be ambidextrous as children and have cut our quills accordingly. He thinks he’s awfully clever, but I also find it a pain. If you ever wish to borrow a regular right-handed quill, I keep a few in a hidden compartment in the top right hand drawer at my desk. The mechanism is simple, but write to me if you have trouble activating it. Don’t pull the drawer out all the way, as doing so will activate the poison trap._

_I can’t give you a good answer for why I waited as long as I did. I know it was too long. I don’t think I was capable of giving what you asked for (loving you, providing for your needs, so on) while fighting the war. Early on, Hubert and I agreed that we would have to cut parts of ourselves away to achieve our goals. It’s a useful tool for surviving circumstances that might otherwise be unbearable, but you’ll agree with me when I say that it’s a tool that does not allow you to be close to anyone. Every month that passed felt like a worse month than before to make declarations of eternal promises, &c. _

_One thing we have in common is that we’ve both been remade by our own wills. Our paths were diverted from their natural courses by fate, and we changed them to be more to our liking with our own hands, is what I mean. Now that the war’s over, my path demands less of me. I feel capable of loving you now in a way I couldn’t have before. It’s unfair of me to have taken so much from you, year after year, when all I can offer now is something you should have been given from the start, but it’s all I have. If you require more, I understand._

_Sorry for the mess above. I began writing the valediction then realized I haven’t answered your last question about seriousness. You’re almost done braiding your hair, so this will have to be quick._

_Hypothetically, should we both agree to be serious, I imagine us retiring near some land I’ve kept and building a house there. I’d like it to be near Griselda and Sigi and my father, for sentimental reasons. There should be enough land to keep some animals without bothering you. I know you don’t care for dogs or horses, but I find the company of both invigorating. The horses will be stabled some distance from the house, and the dogs will have their own homes and beds. There will be some cats on the property. If there are children in our future, then my apologies ahead of time, but they will be taught how to ride, as it is a practical and pleasurable skill. I see no reason to teach them warfare. I’d like to spoil them, and you, with the life I wish I had._

_Indifferent to the prospect of keeping an apartment in the city, as, regardless of whatever reform or law will be passed, Enbarr will continue to be filled with the usual sources of irritation and other vitality-draining incompetents, but you enjoy the culture and the arts, so yes, it would make sense to maintain a presence there. Will you continue writing music or performing at the opera? Oh, I’d love to see you put on shows again._

 _In that case, the dogs will have to stay indoors, and you will have to tolerate them sneaking onto the bed on occasion._

_I should add here that my plan is to abdicate my throne in ten years, no matter what. I imagine Ferdinand or Lysithea (should she be alive) will be eager to see me stand down by then, or maybe some entirely new face will be overjoyed to see the Crimson Emperor disposed. I plan on giving my life to you. I hope that is serious enough for your tastes._

_I’ve let myself get carried away. Keep writing to me. I want to hear everything: your hopes, your doubts, your demands. You can refuse me at any time, but I don’t intend to make it easy for you._

_I am yours, always, in love & otherwise, El von H_

The entire last page was smeared almost to the point of illegibility, as though Edelgard had stuffed it into the envelope before the ink could finish drying. 

Dorothea ran back out to the deck. The salt in the air stung her nose and eyes. She meant to look for Enbarr again, to locate the palace with her mind and trace Edelgard's steps through it, but Petra called out to her. 

“Come!” she said. “Let’s go to the top. I want to see the whole world now that I’m free!” 

“Yes, I’d love to see that,” she said. It was impossible to resist Petra’s happiness. She folded Edelgard’s letter back into its envelope, put it in her pocket, and went to Petra to climb to the crow’s nest. She couldn’t bring herself to stand up all the way once they were at the top, and wound up crouching low, holding onto railing. 

“In ten days, we will be in home,” Petra said. “Don’t worry about having homesickness, Dorothea. There will be so many things for you to see, you won’t have time to be sad. Do you have ocean sickness?” 

“Every time I try to stand up, I feel like I’m going to fall over,” she said.

“Here,” Petra said. She extended her hand and let Dorothea lean against her. Standing, she could see, more clearly, the achingly white cliffs of Enbarr growing smaller behind them and the bright line of the horizon ahead.


	8. birds sing next year's songs (i)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I don’t mean that I’m saying no, but I find that I have to be careful about saying yes too easily._

_My dear Edie, my dear, dear Edie,_

_Are you used to seeing, ‘your words made me happy beyond belief’ in response to one of your letters? I have a feeling you aren’t. I carry your words with me in my pocket and pull them out to look. Caspar has already asked twice why I can’t stop smiling. That’s all you, darling._

_Yes, to everything. Whatever house, however many horses, as many dogs as you’d like. I don’t know how I’m going to put up with all of it, but yes. I love you, and I’m so happy that you love me. Give up your throne right now! Let’s run away together and make all of this Ferdie’s problem._

_I’m calming down. You weren’t kidding about making it hard to refuse you. I don’t mean that I’m saying no, but I find that I have to be careful about saying yes too easily. You say you want to hear my doubts, so I’ll give some to you._

_Are you saying you want to have a house in the middle of what once was Hresvelg lands because you’ve always seen yourself there, or because I wrote of it in my last letter? Do our futures look alike because when I write children, you write children back to me, or because we really do see things the same way? You’ve always said you’re willing to use any method you can to win, and while rhetoric might not be your strongest suit, I’m not like you, Edie. I’ll fall for anyone who promises the right things._

_If you give me your life, I’ll hold onto it like it’s my last scrap of bread. There’s nothing else that I could ask from you, nothing that I’d treasure more in this life. But you understand that I want to make sure you won’t try to take it back the second I do something that displeases you. I want to know that this will last._

_I’m realizing how this looks. You say all those wonderful things, and here I am, turning my nose up at everything. Your words do make me very happy. I’m so happy I can’t stand it. I hate myself a little for wanting you so much. I used to be able to pretend I could be clearheaded around you, no matter how in love I was, but that’s over now. My mind scatters at the thought of you like water on an oiled glove._

_I’m planning on sending this out the second we reach the harbor. Talking to you like this for the next six months is going to drive me mad. Write to me as soon as you’re able. You said I shouldn’t hold back, and I’ll ask you to do the same. Even if you’re angry, tell me. I won’t be scared._

_All my heart, truly, all of it,_

_Your dearly beloved Dorothea_

#

Just as Edelgard promised, Dorothea received letters from her on a regular basis. Long, extended conversations with Dorothea about their future and about love. Dorothea read each of them obsessively, holding the paper up to screamingly bright Brigid sunlight or taking them with her from place to place until her mind started thinking of the next letter or she finished her reply; then, as Hubert requested, she resealed them with her ring before putting them away to avoid anyone in the foreign court from opening Edelgard’s words. 

At the beginning of her stay, she received a letter two or three times a week, and not always in order: depending on which ship her letters traveled with and how fast the messenger moved from the docks to Edelgard’s position—she was moving up from Garreg Mach to Fhirdiad, now—their conversations jumped from Dorothea’s childhood to Edelgard’s observations on Faerghus and its lands to Dorothea’s songwriting to Edelgard’s reports on her siblings and father to Dorothea’s lists of things of non-spycraft interest in Brigid to Edelgard’s excited speculation about Hubert’s love life. To do the last item in writing felt dangerous, especially with Hubert handling much of their correspondence, but Edelgard’s appetite for gossip overrode her good sense. Dorothea wasn’t going to stop Edelgard if she was having fun—and it wasn’t as though Dorothea wasn’t enjoying it, too. 

Hubert, Ferdinand, and Byleth’s letters accompanied Edelgard’s: Hubert’s more formal reports and orders, Ferdinand’s exuberant inquiries about her trip and if she was having fun and if she needed anything, anything at all, and also, as his commoner friend, what did she think? She sent him a letter back telling him that he had an entire empire full of commoners he could ask, if only he knew where to look. Byleth’s letters were short, to the point commentaries on their march. Unlike Edelgard and Hubert, Byleth was more forthcoming about the troubles of the journey: the disgruntled townsfolk, the assassination attempt on Edelgard’s life, how beaten down Mercedes had looked when they found her, having survived the Tailtean Plains, in a village; she had resisted, at first, until they brought Jeritza. Even then, she hadn’t been happy. 

_Anyway, El wants to know what sweets you’re eating in Brigid. If you have some you like, please send some back. She keeps talking about them and sighing. I think she’s hungry._

Reading Byleth’s words, Dorothea had to fight the urge to shake the letter, whether out of annoyance or fondness. She found her letters to them terser than the letters she wrote to others. It wasn’t fair, she knew. She was certain she’d get over it soon enough. 

#

Petra was busy almost the entire time, being swept away for ceremonies, meetings, and reunions with family members she hadn’t seen in years. Dorothea got in the habit of asking who, exactly, was keeping Petra from her and Caspar, and listing the names and titles in her letters back to Hubert. Petra, by nature, wanted to give her help to everyone, and so she was late to everything that wasn’t for Brigid. It was hard to be upset with Petra, who was both gentle and sweet, but Dorothea felt a familiar impatience as she and Caspar waited for Petra to show for dinner. Edelgard had pulled this on Dorothea a few times, too, even after she became strict about her time. 

At the end of the fourth week, after being stood up for the fifth time for dinner, Petra came to Dorothea’s room to apologize. It was late and dark. Dorothea was at her desk, writing by lamplight. All of this was familiar and evoked familiar emotions, though without the bitter sting of abandonment. 

Petra as queen looked much the same as she had as a warrior. Her braids were even more intricate and elaborate now that she had help from people in the palace. New tattoos had been put into her arms and shoulders not long after she arrived; they were at a flaking, itchy looking stage, but she didn’t look bothered. She wore a short cape with what looked like an eagle head on the shoulder, a detail that reminded Dorothea of Edelgard. Then again, most things reminded her of Edelgard these days. 

There were some chairs in her room for Dorothea to receive visitors, and the two of them sat there. Servants brought food, a selection of flat breads, fresh from the ovens, and the strange, thick soups made with coconut milk and spiced in ways Dorothea never imagined. It wasn’t entirely to her tastes, but she liked it, anyway. 

They ate together, Petra asking her what she thought of the food and apologizing almost constantly. 

“It’s all right,” Dorothea said. “Do you miss not being queen?” 

“I do not know how to be best answering you,” Petra said. “I am glad to be home, yes, and being no longer an arrow pointed against my grandfather, but I do not have so much experience in… being this.” 

“Petra.” She felt, suddenly, the weight of Petra’s burdens and how badly she had been hobbled by her time in Fodlan. “Are you going to be okay? When Caspar and I leave here, will you have friends?” 

“I probably will not have any for some time,” she said. “That is why I am very upset I cannot spend more time with you. But that’s okay. Being in Fodlan for so long taught me how to be patient. I am sure to have good allies soon.”

“Right, but what about now?” Dorothea said. Petra always made a point of being self-sufficient, but she wanted to help. “Why can’t you have a Hubie like Edie does? Someone who’s good at arranging things for you and taking care of your schedule and looming over those you don’t like.” 

She had been speaking strictly hypothetically, but Petra nodded a few times, then said, “Then I would like Claude.”

Dorothea coughed spicy soup into her nose. “Wait—Petra. Are you serious?”

“Yes.” Petra scooped some soup with her bread. She made the whole process look easy and efficient. After spending a few weeks in Brigid, Dorothea was starting to feel that forks and knives were pointless table instruments, too. “Claude and I had understanding when we were in the academy. He said I should be sending letters to him if I need help. Now is the time that I am needing that help. Edelgard says she will do anything to help me, so now I am asking.” 

“Of course,” Dorothea said. “Edie won’t be happy, though. I don’t think she ever trusted Claude. What kind of understanding did you two have, hmm?” 

“It’s not like that,” she said, blushing. “Claude is simply, ah, both a friend and not politically… how to say it? Venomous! The way that you or our other friends would be. And I am thinking he will not want to be in his home country for so long. He’ll want to escape again soon; he is used to being preyed on. Will you do it?” 

“I’ll do one better. I’ll ask her _and_ Hubie. Is there anything else you’d like me to write?” 

“I would like… hmm. I would like to know if you have been saying good things about Brigid.” 

“Only the best. I said we should consider retiring here,” Dorothea said. “I haven’t gotten the reply yet, but she’ll probably say yes and then list all the reasons why we shouldn’t.” 

“She would be right. You only see the harbor city, not the rest of where we have been hurt,” Petra said, without any acrimony or bitterness. “Maybe five years from now, I will be overpowered and exiled back to Fodlan. That is why I am glad you are mentioning having a trusted advisor so that does not happen.”

“Petra—” She couldn’t even say she wanted to stay. What she wanted was to go back to Enbarr and immediately take a horse to Fhirdiad to be with Edelgard. Still, she had the sense that, if her time during the war turned out differently, she would’ve stayed. Just when did Fodlan come to have both her indelible past and all her feverish hopes for the future? 

Petra put her hand on Dorothea’s forearm. Her grip was firm and steady, and her face marked more by amusement than by loss. 

“It’s all right,” Petra said. “We all choose whom we give the most of ourselves to and why, yes? I am happy with what I have of you. And I will not be completely lonely as long as you are writing to me.” She kissed Dorothea’s forehead then stood up. “I must be saying sorry to Caspar. Please, write to Edelgard and Hubert as soon as possible.” 

“I will,” Dorothea said. She smiled up at Petra and said, “I can tell you’re a queen because you’re bossing me around as much as Edie does.”

“Not as much as Edelgard!” Petra said, shaking her head. “She is asking for your life. I am only asking for some letters. Good night, Dorothea. I promise, I will find a way to spend time with you again soon.” 

#

_Entirely beloved Dorothea, my only one,_

_As part of my running list of things that make me think of you: Levin swords, dandelion seeds (they’re always in your hair when we’re marching), scorch marks in the countryside. I know you consider many of these unpleasant, so let me write of something more to your liking. Hubert lately has taken to humming songs while writing orders to Bernadetta, and that makes me think of you testing the acoustics in the bath. We passed tall, white gneiss cliffs recently on our press north, and I was reminded of the last song you sent me about the white wings of justice, even if I object to the wings being white—if anything, they should be black._

_Regarding your comment on the latest attempt on my life, I cannot bring myself to think of it while writing to you. I’m sorry for not mentioning it, but when I write to you, I think only of our future and how much I want us to be together again. Just as I had no plans on dying during the war until I achieved my goal, I do not plan on dying before we have a life together. However, your points about openness are well-made, and, as you suggested, I, too, would be upset if I had to learn of your own assassination attempts from Hubert. I’ve included some details at the bottom of this page._

_Must emphasize that there isn’t anything to worry about. Most Faerghus assassins clang too loudly to be considered sneaky._

_New page, new thoughts._

_This weekend, I’ll have two hours to myself, and I plan to use the time to think of you scratching your name into my back while you take me from behind. When I tire of watching Hubert and Ferdinand blush at each other over tea, I think of your lower lips sliding against mine as I ride you until you’re spent. I think of your tongue when I’m cleaning myself late at night. You’re headed back for Enbarr soon, aren’t you? I’ll make some time to travel to Garreg Mach, and you can meet me there if you happen to have business in the area. We have made something like love before, but I’d like to have the chance to do so without pretenses._

_You’re right to say that I didn’t fall in love with you while we were students. I find it hard to imagine that you did, given how preoccupied I was. I knew you were special. You were beautiful and generous, and you had no fear in talking to anyone. I did think you had to be the unluckiest person I knew when it came to courtship. Watching those bottom barrel toadies materialize in front of your door always made me think of how rotten the nobility was. How could there be so many, and each so patently unworthy? In any case, it wasn’t my place to judge._

_As for a more definitive when: not long after we took the monastery for the Empire, I saw you talking with Ferdinand about the recent changes in his fortunes and comforting him, though I believe you two were not close friends at the time. When I asked you why you were talking, you said that you had spoken to him out of pity (he was very pitiable in those days) and for me, knowing how I couldn’t have after imprisoning his father myself._

_You were upset with me at the time, so we didn’t speak for long, but I remember thinking how grateful and pleased I was that you wanted to help me that way. And that I was making a mistake, pulling you into my war. I thought of what you wanted and what you needed and what I was asking for, and I felt feverish and sick from what I was doing to you. I’m not sure if you would consider that love. I do._

_I have to admit one concern of mine. Sometimes you say things in your letters that make it sound like you don’t believe I truly expect you to be in my future. I’ll never tire of reassuring you, but I do wonder whether you doubt me too strongly to be happy with me. When you ask, even jokingly, if I’m sure I could be satisfied with you, I wonder if you question my sincerity. I decided long ago that you were the one I want to be with. I fought my war thinking, in the deepest parts of myself, it’d be worth it if I could love you without any of the clucking old men telling me who I must be with, no more worship of dead goddess or saints, who hear neither prayers nor cries, no nobles to sneer at you, ever. No one else matters to me in the same way that you do._

_What else can I do or say to convince you that I’m yours, or at least, to believe in the strength of my feelings? Please tell me. I can’t bear the thought of you unhappy with me._

_Ferdinand has come by just now to tell me that some doubt is normal and that it is my own certainty which is abnormal, but I’d still like to know._

_I talk about paths often, but we could have more than that. A field, do you think? A wide open green space to go with a future where you and I want for nothing else but time with each other. Some material considerations: a place to live, a room for the children—the dogs, I concede, are capable of sleeping in the grass, but I hope you’ll let me at least give them a bed._

_As you’ve requested, I’ve scented this letter with the perfume you like. Scent your next letter for me, too._

_Your very_

_I almost forgot to mention. In your last letter, you mentioned wanting a gift for Petra. Hubert and I have reached out as requested. It’s kind of you to help her like this. I wish I had thought to ask her myself. Are you sure you don’t want a job from Hubert? He’s been very happy with your letters as of late. He quotes lines to me when he thinks you’ve been witty. I’d be jealous if I didn’t know you both too well not to be._

_Your very own_

_Edelgard v H, who thinks of you always_

#

Petra, after six weeks of being harried, put her foot down. She spirited Caspar and Dorothea to a trip to the wilds of Brigid. They went hunting, multiple times: slowly, with a bow on foot, and then on horseback, and then on foot again. They went fishing and sailing—the professor, too, would love Brigid, Dorothea thought. For three days, they played games on the beaches with each other and with the locals. Petra wrestled with Caspar in the sand and showed Dorothea where she could buy a guitar. Dorothea wound up buying three, each of a different size, and one strange instrument with bags. 

Caspar was shy when he met people in Brigid. He went by Ubert on the island, and no matter how many times Dorothea asked, she couldn’t work out whether Ashe was letting Caspar use his name to avoid the unfortunate associations around Bergliez or if the two of them were together. Petra convinced Caspar got a Brigid tattoo on his arm to show his friendship to the Queen, and, while Caspar was getting stabbed by bamboo needles, Dorothea asked, “Caspar, what do you like about Ashe?” 

“Ashe? At first, I couldn’t stand him!” Caspar said. “But now we have a cat together, so he’s not too bad, yeah?” 

Dorothea and Petra exchanged a look over Caspar’s head. 

“What Dorothea means is, are you having sex?” Petra said helpfully. 

“Having sex with what?” Caspar said. 

“ _Each other_!” Dorothea said, now more confused than ever. No progress on that front. 

#

Ten days on the water. When the ship docked in Enbarr, it was an hour to noon. Enbarr summers were hot, but cooled by the wind coming off the water. Already, Enbarr looked different from how she remembered: houses in the noble districts torn down to make way for a growing city; fewer poor beggars on the streets; fewer soldiers, though some still recognized her and called her von Arnault. 

A carriage was already waiting to take her back to the palace. That, for some reason, made her feel as though Edelgard was really thinking of her, though she knew that it was Lysithea she had sent the letter to with the name of the ship she’d take back to Fodlan and Lysithea, knowing it was what Edelgard would have wanted, who ordered the carriage to fetch her. 

When she returned, the guards said hello to her and the palace staff had a bath already drawn in Edelgard’s bedchambers. There were letters from her friends waiting for her, and she read them in the bath, saving Edelgard’s for last. Just as she suspected, one of Edelgard’s letters had been written in a state of pent-up desire. A single paragraph on top announced that she had only a few minutes to write, and from there, a full two pages, without a single paragraph break, devoted to what she was fantasizing about and how she wanted to be taken or take Dorothea in kind. Dorothea, in the bath, touched her breasts, imagining Edelgard kissing the space between them; imagined Edelgard writing the letter and rocking against the padded chair, trying to get off and wishing it was Dorothea’s leg she was rubbing against. She had to put the letter down to not get it wet as she brought herself to a quick climax. The other letters would have to wait. 

When she finished her bath, she made her way down to the kitchen to request lunch. Her hair was piled at the top of her head and wrapped in a towel, and, with most of her clothes in need of cleaning and the height of summer upon them, she wore a Brigid skirt and wrap. A noise went through the hall. It was Lysithea and Byleth, running after—well. Byleth was running. Lysithea was power walking. 

“What are you doing here?” Dorothea said to Byleth. For a moment, she thought Edelgard had to be with them, and she felt her skin tighten across her chest in anticipation. Then she realized that couldn’t be the case. If that were true, Edelgard would have met her in her room. 

“El sent me back to help Linhardt and Hanneman with their Crest research. Help me. I’ve had lunches with them and Lysithea for the last three days, and they won’t stop fighting.” 

“For someone who’s supposed to be the Ashen Demon, you’re pretty cowardly.” 

They nodded solemnly. “I value self-preservation above all else. I’m not ready to die.” 

“ _Literally_ running away from me is unnecessary, don’t you think?” Lysithea said, catching up with them. She was holding, Dorothea saw now, not a mage staff, but a pole with a bag of clear, green liquid with tubes leading into her arm. “You said you’d do anything to help me get rid of my Crests. I didn’t expect you to back down.” 

“It can’t hurt to let them take a break to refresh, can it?” Dorothea said, taking Byleth by the arm before they could fold. “I have something I need to speak to Byleth about, actually. Let me steal them away?” 

“If you let yourself be someone’s cover all the time, you’ll develop unseemly habits,” Lysithea said. 

“You sound like Hubie when you talk about people being seemly or not,” Dorothea said. She dug her nails into Byleth’s back before they could say anything. “But I really do have important business to discuss with them, both for work and personally. About Edie.”

Using Lysithea’s soft spot towards Edelgard wasn’t playing fair, she knew, but it wasn’t as though she was lying. 

Dorothea and Byleth ate in a shady spot in the garden and had to keep swatting away bugs; it was that type of season. Cats approached Byleth immediately, winding around their legs and getting fur all over Dorothea’s dress. They kept picking cats up and holding them, not minding that the cats sniffed at their food or stuck their faces into their glass of water. Dorothea had to be the one to shoo the cats off the table. 

Their conversation took the expected path. Byleth asked how her journey was, how Petra and Caspar were doing, whether she had a good trip. They had a bit of good news that hadn’t reached Dorothea through the letters yet: Claude had written back to say he was willing to go down to Brigid for a lark. 

“El says you’re doing good work,” she said. 

“Please. I just asked a friend what she needed. There’s no work in that.” Byleth was staring at her with that damnably perceptive stare. She smiled. “It’s still odd hearing someone call her ‘El.’ I didn’t think she’d ever let someone do that.” 

“Do you not like it?” 

“It doesn’t matter what I think, does it? You and Edie have your own friendship. I shouldn’t stand in the way of that.” She could hear the edge in her voice, which came from too deeply felt of a place for her to disguise it. She knew that Edelgard wasn’t in love with Byleth; she treated them like Hubert or Ferdinand, as an important advisor and friend she could rely on. But even if Edelgard treated Byleth the same, Dorothea knew Byleth was special in a way she never would be. She sat back in her chair and tried to calm her thoughts. “I’m sorry. I’ve been short with you lately.”

The look on their face said that they had noticed, but they hadn’t said anything out of consideration for her feelings. “Why?” 

“Isn’t it obvious?” she said, flushing. She was embarrassed for herself and angry with Byleth for making her actually say it. “Because you matter to Edie in a way I can’t. You ended a war for her.” 

“She used me to win. That’s different.” Byleth took one cat off the table and into their lap. 

“You didn’t see what I saw—how quickly everything changed once Edie had you.” 

“Most people are happy when they’re winning, especially when it’s life or death,” they said. “She’s happy in a different way with each of her friends. Especially with you.” 

She pushed a cat off the table, apparently in a mean way—Byleth’s expression was one of hurt. She felt a twinge of guilt. Here she was, showing all of her worst sides to Byleth. “What is she like when she’s with me?” 

“Hmm. Warm? Like she wants to tell everyone to go away so she can look at you longer. You look happy, too, like you’ve found that strange person you used to talk about.” 

“She’s strange, that’s for sure.” She looked at her plate, with its rinds and bones pushed to the edges. As far as she could tell, Edelgard really was going to be that strange person she used to fantasize about, the fantastical being who wouldn’t be afraid of how much love she needed. Dorothea should have suspected her strange person would be someone who experienced doubt twice a year, the way one might catch a cold, rather than living in its marshes. “If I knew she’d definitely love me forever, then I’d be happy for sure.” 

“You might as well be happy now. Even if you knew she’d love you forever, you’d find another thing to worry about. Assassination, accidents, her Crests—oh. Are you going to worry about that now?”

“ _Yes_! Why did getting an actual heart remove your common sense? No wonder you’re courting three people at once. I mean, Jeritza?” 

“Sorry. If it makes you feel better, I worry about her, too. I worry about everyone. I can’t turn back time anymore, so we’re stuck with whatever happens to us. That’s scary.” Their hand was in their pocket and fidgeting with something inside. They really did carry that ring with them everywhere. “When I told El and Hubert, they laughed. El said I’d learn what real consequences are.”

“She’s… I’m sure she didn’t mean to laugh.” She wasn’t going to say anything about Hubert. He had definitely meant it. She felt calmer knowing the professor thought she was happy. She knew she was happy, but she enjoyed other people telling her she was happy. It felt like congratulations. “Why did you never try to give me that ring? Edie says you’re trying to pass it off to anyone who looks at you sideways.” 

“I don’t ask people who might say yes.” 

“Byleth, that’s… you’re just going to confuse your friends and the people you actually want to give this to. That doesn’t answer my question, either. I wouldn’t say yes.” 

“You wouldn’t,” Byleth said with a nod. “But El told me she was planning on asking.”

“Oh—honey, I don’t think so.” 

“No, she is.” 

“You’re perceptive in many ways, but not in love,” Dorothea said patiently. Byleth looked like they disagreed with her, despite being an objective baby when it came to feelings, but she figured that was just Byleth being used to people calling them professor at this point in their life. They probably thought they knew everything. “If she were actually planning on it, the natural point would’ve been right before we left on our months-long trips. Or before we fought Dimitri or Rhea, when we both might’ve died—that’s when _I_ would’ve asked, if she weren’t so war-minded back then. Or…” She brought a glass of water to her mouth, took a sip, and missed, spilling water onto her chin and down the front of her wrap. Byleth passed her their napkin. “She probably got tired of you asking her all the time and made something up so you’d understand. Not that it’s a good lie, but she’s surprisingly bad at those.” 

She laughed carelessly, then looked at her fingers, full of rings—rings from Edelgard, the seal from Hubert. Edelgard knew her ring sizes. Their letters had been getting increasingly intense. They were, with each letter, coming to a more perfect concordance of how they saw their love and future together. If she had to be honest with herself, she couldn’t have imagined Edelgard asking during the war. But now? 

“When did she say this?” Dorothea said. She could feel sweat breaking out on her palms, the back of her neck, the top of her thighs. Her heart was racing. She was either overjoyed or, as Hubert was always warning her, had been poisoned. Both seemed equally plausible. 

“A few weeks ago, when we were making camp, in… I think it was supposed to be a secret,” Byleth said. They pet the cat in their lap a few times. “My bad.” 

#

After lunch, Dorothea went back to Edelgard’s rooms and read through the newest letters. All of them, this time, even the one which began with an apology about how all it contained was an account of a meeting that had pissed her off. She skipped to the end of that one, to the point where she knew Edelgard would be tired of writing on and on about politics and become effusive about—her, really. And their relationship. Yes, she could imagine receiving a proposal based on the content and tone of this letter. And the next one. But not so much the next one—she couldn’t explain why. Or the next. Then she reread it and it seemed very affectionate after all, and it was the previous letter, which suggested that Edelgard would have them live in a big house with two to five orphans of their choosing with no particular commitment to each other, that was insufficient. 

Was she loved? Yes. But was she loved that much? To warrant an entire life—though she knew marriages could end early for all kinds of reasons. And engagements could be broken off and proposals spurned. To speculate in words was one thing; to create the feeling of love in another person, to write effusively on and on—but then to do... 

After spending more than two hours doing this, she realized she was not in the mindset to accurately judge Edelgard’s intentions. Worse than that, she was draining all the pleasure of these letters by reading them in this light. 

She had learned, over the years, that it wasn’t just Edelgard’s presence that calmed her. Edelgard had a whole suite of rituals and routines that she folded Dorothea into. She liked tea, alone or with friends; if it was a stress tea session, she’d start by rolling a map out on the table and pontificating for five minutes. If it wasn’t a good hour for tea, then Edelgard liked to walk; it was what she did, too, when she had trouble sleeping and when her night terrors woke her, and Dorothea often joined her on those late night strolls. Dorothea had enjoyed getting a full night’s sleep in Edelgard’s absence, but it bothered her knowing that Edelgard was sleeping by herself with only Hubert in the next room for comfort. Not that Hubert was incapable of caring for Edelgard or providing his own type of comfort, but Dorothea knew she was missed. 

She walked around the room with the teacup on its saucer. The room had once been Edelgard’s father’s, then Edelgard’s, and now, after two months away, Dorothea could see the places where she had made this hers, too. Her trunks, of course, piled in the middle of the room. The wardrobe full of her dresses, the nightstand with their jewelry and makeup, hers on the left and most of the center, Edelgard’s on the right. The piles of musical scores and folios on her desk.

An artist’s rendition of a general with red hair leading his men into battle on a beach leaned against the far wall. In the background, a gremory with white hair and dark magic in her hands pointed her battalion forward. Dorothea bought the painting at a salon as a surprise for Ferdinand. Edelgard had told her he was to be promoted from the Prime Minister’s secretary to the Minister of the Interior on his return. Edelgard complained that, with Hubert backing him and his winsome ways of approaching the old nobility and the new, rising commoners, Ferdinand would likely be a popular Prime Minister by the time he was thirty. They were not real complaints, Dorothea knew. 

A canvas Edelgard had been working on was next to that painting. Dorothea, already knowing what it depicted, removed the protective cloth and was greeted by the sight of her own naked body viewed from the back. It was in Edelgard’s characteristic style: more replicator than artist, in Dorothea’s objective opinion. A skillful replicator, and one better attuned to shape and line than to color. Her hair didn’t look right in the painting—too much red from where Edelgard had painted with her mind instead of her eye—and the paint hadn’t been mixed quite right for the skin. Too yellow here, too pink there. Her ass came out nicely, maybe nicer than it was in real life. Dorothea rubbed her lower back absentmindedly, as though doing so would make Edelgard’s gaze appear. 

There was one detail that made her chest ache. Edelgard had included the almost invisible scar from when Dorothea been struck by a Bolting from an enemy mage in the fourth year of the war, strong enough to pierce the protective cover of her own magic. The lightning had traveled from the middle of her neck, down her shoulder, and out her elbow; for two weeks afterwards, her shoulder and hand had been numb. Obviously, a problem during a war and in love. Dorothea had spent money for special healing sessions to remove as much of the scar as possible. She had felt stupid and vain for it when Edelgard’s would never be removed. 

The painted scar was a slim line, like a white-pink river running from her neck into her arm. And now that she looked closer, she could see other things Edelgard had included: a patch of rough paint on her ribs to represent a burn that had never healed right, a shy hint of the big javelin scar she had gotten from poor Ingrid back in the day on her leg. They had never talked about the scar treatments before. If she asked now, she’d receive an honest and sincere answer. No more secrets, no more tiptoeing around any topics. Edelgard’s heart was defenseless to her, just as she was defenseless in turn, without any fear of danger. 

She didn’t trust the bolt of happiness that had hit her when the news first reached her ears; nor did she trust the frenzy that had taken over her right after. She did believe the physical proof scattered around her, and the calm she was in now. Her school days were over, the war was over, her vacation, the time Edelgard had asked her to use to think, was over. 

Not now, but later, she used to say to herself make those years go by faster. And here she was.


	9. birds sing next year's songs (ii)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> URGENT: A letter for Edelgard von Hresvelg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a really long sex scene that includes vaginal fisting, anal fingering, a truly excessive amount of finger sucking, and… a lot of romance…

Dorothea spent the night opening her trunks and staring into them, then going to her desk and staring at the letters on her desk, then going back to her trunks. The engagement was coming for her, but when? 

Knowing Edelgard, she could be waiting for even more months. Something might come up. Ferdinand’s next set of policy proposals might take her attention until winter, or Lysithea would have some new, arcane magic she’d want Edelgard to learn for the next war. Edelgard would want things to be perfect. She’d want the right speech, the right flowers to be in season, the right beam of sunlight to kneel in. Dorothea was capable of waiting for a long time, but she knew couldn’t wait for this. 

At dawn, Dorothea started writing. 

#

_My lovely and dearest Edie,_

_I’ve returned to Enbarr and have read through your letters. I’m sorry, darling, but you’ll have to wait for a proper reply to all your words a little longer. I have an urgent question for you._

_The professor told me the most wonderful, terrible(?) news over lunch today. They said you mean to propose on your return. Do you? If I’m to be honest, I have a hard time believing you will. Much of it is your fault, and some of it, I know, is mine. I remember hurt better than happiness. Or I remember happiness, but it never stays close to mind. I admire how determined you are to move beyond the past and into a new future, but even you can’t escape your dreams. Whether we want to or not, the people we once were live on inside us. The part of me that thinks the world despises her is still with me, no matter how beautiful or useful I am. You claim those things don’t matter to you, but I know you have eyes, and for five and a half years, I was yours to command._

_Then again, if I hadn’t been yours to command, I don’t think you would love me as much. It’s a sad truth, isn’t it. You needed me to fight for you to trust me completely._

_Edie, you said I should make my choice based on the person you are today. I think the person you are today is planning on spending the rest of her life with me—no. I know you are. I’ve thought about it and thought about it and I’m certain you meant every word you’ve written. I confess, a part of me has been treating our talks of the future as fantasies._

_Let’s throw any “maybe”s and “what if”s and “if you should be serious”es aside. Marry me._

_If you’re thinking to yourself, “Yes, but we should wait until this last war is over,” then let me persuade you. There’ll never be a perfect time, and even if you think you can create it, I won’t wait again, not even for another year. We’ll make time and perfection for ourselves._

_Even if you were planning on asking me anyway, even if you wanted to be the one to ask, say yes to me. I love you and you love me back, and, even if I don’t know what will happen ten years or ten days from now, I’m going to say yes to this, too. I know it sounds like I’m completely sure of myself here, but I’m not! I imagine you reading this and what must be going through your head, and my teeth start chattering. Everyone tells me you’re planning on proposing. Is your pride riding on making it perfect? What if you think I’m presumptuous or too forward? Solve my worries for me, Edie. Say yes._

_I’m going to Fhirdiad as soon as I can. It’ll take ages for me to go there, but it’ll be worth it after I see you._

_If you don’t mean it, though, Warp me a letter back to say so and let’s end things forever. It’ll take me a few days to prepare for the journey, so you’ll have some time to think it over—is what I’d say if I were pretending to be you. I know you won’t disappoint me. Make me happy. Be mine. I love you and can’t wait to see you._

_Madly, madly yours, Dorothea_

She sealed the letter with the stamp for official imperial business and went straight to the mail room in the palace, where she knew one of Hubert’s greasy young officials would be on standby. She knew she was abusing her power and influence to get her mail sent by Warp, and didn’t care. 

#

By express, the letter would almost certainly be in Edelgard’s hands within the day. If Edelgard said no—she wouldn’t, but if she did—then the message reach Dorothea in a day and a half—two days, maximum. 

Every night, Dorothea lay awake, holding onto the pillow. The time was right, the time was not right. A letter would come, a letter would not come. She didn’t know why she had proposed in writing. Surely she could have waited a few weeks? A few days? Her body and mind burned with separate, competing fires that could not put each other out. 

It took two days for her to repack her things and make the necessary travel arrangements. She would travel with a cavalry unit to Garreg Mach, and from there, ride to Fhirdiad on her own. After plenty of coaching, she was a decent enough rider, although it’d take her a full five days instead of the four it’d take if she were traveling with Ferdinand. She didn’t like traveling alone on the roads, but she’d do it for Edelgard.

When it was time for her to go, Lysithea came by in a panic while she was saddling her horse. 

“Hold on!” Lysithea said, waving her arms. “Hubert said I should give you this if you decided to run off to Fhirdiad after coming back.”

It was a box the size of a dagger. “What’s inside?” Dorothea said. 

“I don’t know. _I_ , unlike some people, mind my own business.” She didn’t move, though. Apparently she was going to wait for Dorothea to open it. 

Inside was a letter from Hubert. _Dorothea, my dear friend,_ it began, and went on to proclaim that he was certain she would not need his assistance in this matter, but should something happen to him (death, maiming, or disappearances lasting longer than twelve days), then she should consult this letter, along with the one he had left Ferdinand, to learn the best ways to care for Edelgard, her main duty, and some minor parts of the Empire. Dorothea skimmed and found a starred section further down. Ring size (bare), ring size (gloved), shoe size, where he kept the secret stash of Agarthium in case Aymr needed repairs—

“I forgot about a ring,” Dorothea said, suddenly feeling weak. 

“No, there’s one here!” Lysithea said excitedly, digging around the box and pulling up a silver band with a massive ruby in the middle. Dorothea gave it one look and then shook her head. It wouldn’t do. Lysithea’s face fell. Then, recovering, she said, “It’s no matter. Rings are nothing more than expensive, sentimental hogwash. The really important part is the marriage contract.” 

She didn’t have a contract, either. She wouldn’t admit it. Lysithea would think she was woefully underprepared. “You don’t look surprised that I’m talking about proposals. Has Edie been telling you things?” 

“No. I’m just not stupid.” 

That wasn’t remotely near what she had asked for. She decided to let it go. She was going to be late. 

#

In four days, she was in Garreg Mach. It still had that army base feel: more fortifications had been built, and soldiers were everywhere, practicing their form and laughing with each other. It had only been a few months since she last visited, and it didn’t surprise her that much of it was exactly as she remembered it. The one big change was the stained-glass windows. The elaborate murals of Seiros were in the process of being removed and replaced by simple geometric patterns. 

Her plan was to eat lunch in the cafeteria and head out for Fhirdiad immediately. She was heading through the entrance hall to the cafeteria when a commotion started all around her. People at the very back of the hall were making way, and someone was shouting, “It’s the emperor!” 

Dorothea saw Hubert first, barreling through the crowd. Edelgard’s side ponytail was the next thing she saw, flashing white, then Edelgard herself, out of her regalia and in a red dress and wearing one of her casual crowns, a circlet with horns coming out of the temple. She was holding her skirts up in her hand to avoid tripping over them. When they had a clear line of sight of each other, Dorothea saw Edelgard’s smile break the emperor’s mask. She saw Edelgard try to control it, but the closer they got to each other, the wider it became, until she let out a delighted laugh and threw her arms around Dorothea, even though she was in her riding clothes, drenched with sweat, and covered in dust from the road. 

“You didn’t tell me you’d be here!” Dorothea said, trying to be restrained and conduct herself appropriately with the Emperor of Fodlan shoving her face into her neck. She put her arms around Edelgard, sliding her hands across her back, where the heart-shaped cutout of her regalia usually would be. “You’re even more gorgeous than I remember! What’s your secret? Is it that you’re mine now?” 

“I left the day after I got your letter. I didn’t want to wait any longer. You said I should only send word if I planned to refuse you,” Edelgard said. “If I made you too anxious, you might have taken your proposal back.” 

“I wouldn’t. Well, I might have.” She tugged on the collar of Edelgard’s dress, wrinkling it. She looked over to Hubert before he could say anything. “Hi, Hubie. We’ll talk later? I have the documents you asked for.” 

“Give that to me. You’ll be busy later.” He took her satchel from her, careful to avoid jostling anything. Then, to the people in front of them, he glowered and said, “Move. Your eyes are unworthy.” 

“We’re supposed to be trying to dissolving class difference, Hubert,” Edelgard said. “I’m not a divine emperor. The blood that stains my feet is as red as the blood running in my own veins. I’m not making a speech,” she said as the crowd went silent and turned their eyes to her. “Excuse us.” 

Edelgard had moved out of her old room in the dorms and into the old faculty quarters. It was an odd thing to see Edelgard’s letters and one of her tea sets on Jeralt’s desk, but Dorothea supposed she’d be used to it soon enough. The bookshelves along the southern wall had been taken away and the wall covered with maps. They sat at the same side of the desk, although far closer than usual, so close that their knees and shins pressed together. Dorothea removed Edelgard’s crown and put it on the desk. 

“Does your offer still stand?” Edelgard said. “Now that you’ve come all this way, have you changed your mind?” 

“It still stands. I want to marry you. How do you answer?” Her eyes suddenly dropped to the floor. She had to force her gaze up. She knew the response, but it was hard not to steel herself for bad news. 

“I answer yes,” she said. She put a steadying hand on Dorothea’s thigh and leaned in for a kiss. She was sweet and gentle, and Dorothea’s attention went instantly to her lips, which were the most important part of her body, the only part that mattered, until Edelgard squeezed her leg. “I’ve missed you. I can’t tell if we’re moving too fast or too slow.” 

“Too fast for sure,” Dorothea said. “I don’t have a ring. Or I have one, but…” She reached into her pocket and found the one from Hubert’s box, which she kept on a chain. 

Edelgard blanched. “Neither of us are ever wearing that. That belonged to Hubert’s mother.” 

She almost had to laugh at the thought of Hubert shoving the only appropriately sized ring he had available to him into the box. “That’s sweet of him. And of you. Whatever happened to ‘I’ll use anything?’” 

“If I’m desperate. These are not desperate times.” She thought for a second, then said, “Give me one of yours, and I’ll wear it on my neck. We’ll pick something for both of us together in Enbarr or Fhirdiad, depending on how long you’ll wait.” Dorothea extended her hands. They shook—she barely felt capable of taking a ring off, never mind picking something suitable for Edelgard. Edelgard, sensing Dorothea’s state of mind, inspected each finger carefully before saying, “This one,” and taking it off Dorothea’s hand herself. A silver band with three small green emeralds. Dorothea knew, without being told, what Edelgard liked about it and why she had chosen it above all the others. Dorothea had been so proud of it when she first bought it, the very first big purchase she made with her army salary. She had shown it off to Edelgard three or four times. She had more beautiful and elegant rings now, and kept this one for sentimental reasons. Edelgard took Hubert’s mother’s ring off the chain and put Dorothea’s on in its place, then adjusted the clasp so it went around her neck. 

“You’re mine,” Dorothea said. She pulled at the chain a few times before Edelgard relocated Dorothea’s hand to her shoulder. “I can’t believe it.” 

“Does it look as good on me as you hoped?” she said. 

“Better.” She rubbed Edelgard’s shoulders. Her fingers, devious, crept closer to the chain. “You’re not mad I asked first?” 

“I wouldn’t be mad about that. I’m happy. I thought I’d have to court you for at least another three months.”

“We’re already together. You wouldn’t need to court me.” 

“Yes, I did,” she said quietly. “It’s what I wanted and what you needed.” 

Dorothea knew a kiss was coming and didn’t resist it. She wanted to stay in the room forever, being kissed in this chair, even if it wasn’t comfortable and even if Edelgard knocked both knees against the arms as she climbed into Dorothea’s lap to kiss her better. She kept her hands on Dorothea’s, reaching for her wrists when Dorothea tried to bring her hands to Edelgard’s body. 

“You’re going to fall over like that,” Dorothea said. “Let me hold you.” 

“I want us to wait for the bed. Don’t think I can’t tell what you’re planning.” 

“But I need you now.” She kissed Edelgard’s neck, the ridges of her throat, the chain, her ring. She meant to kiss her way back up, but put her mouth to it again to leave a mark on either side of the ring. Edelgard usually didn’t let her leave marks. She’d leave as many as she could before her common sense kicked in again. “Edie, aren’t you tired of your own hand? You said you missed how I felt underneath you—” 

“Mm, I do,” Edelgard said, rolling her hips into Dorothea’s lap. “And I miss kissing you, and I want to take you to bed and make love to you the way I’ve wanted to for months. You’re letting your immediate needs blind you to the total picture. For example, lunch. Or how hard you’ll come if you can wait only a little longer.” 

She kissed Dorothea again, occasionally dropping her weight into Dorothea’s lap to hear Dorothea moan and whimper. Dorothea gripped the armrests and arched her back as far as she could, desperate for more contact. She barely registered the knock on the door—Hubert’s knock, recognizable by its polite, muted rap—and Edelgard didn’t care to acknowledge the interruption. After a few minutes, the knock came again. 

“Your Majesty, allow me to bring the tray in. The cats will get into it otherwise,” Hubert said, sounding weary. 

Edelgard got off Dorothea’s lap and went to the door. Dorothea didn’t bother straightening out her clothes, but she did take a second to check her lipstick in her reflection on the window. She wiped the corners of her mouth. Satisfactory. 

“Thank you for reminding us to keep up our strength,” she said, accepting the tray. She put it on a nearby table. Hubert’s eyes went straight to the ring on her neck. She lifted her chin so he could see it better. “Do you like it?” 

“It is acceptable.” 

“Just acceptable?” Dorothea said. He gave her a look that clearly said he believed a ring on a fine, small-linked gold chain was the bare minimum level of extravagance appropriate for the Emperor of Fodlan, but he wasn’t going to say so out loud. 

“Did you really think we were going to use your mother’s ring?” Edelgard said, poking his shoulder with her finger. She was showing off, Dorothea realized, like a girl twirling in place to show off a new dress. 

“It was all I had at the time. I thought it would do. You were the one who said we should wait until we returned to Enbarr to buy.” 

“You claim Dorothea’s is only ‘acceptable,’ yet I find your solution abysmal.”

“I see. I will flay myself senseless in the privacy of my room for my failings, Lady Edelgard, but not before I pass on my congratulations,” he said. He touched the ring with the tip of his gloved finger. He smiled at Dorothea, then, more cautiously, at Edelgard. “Nothing could make me happier. Allow me to let you resume your joyous fornication—”

“ _Hubert_ , must you descend to such base—” 

“Haha!” he said, and left. 

They had lunch, then, to settle their stomachs, went on a walk. It was a short walk: they made one circuit around the quiet garden before Dorothea tried to pick Edelgard up and carry her off. Dorothea had gotten reasonably stronger over the course of the war, but not strong enough to keep Edelgard off the ground for more than five steps. 

“Dorothea!” Edelgard said as she tumbled onto the grass. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said, leaning down—she meant to help her up, but once she was kneeling, other options presented themselves to her. “You’re heavier than I thought. Let me kiss you better.” She tried to pin Edelgard to the grass long enough to get a kiss and a quick grope, or at least to get her hands on some bare skin, but Edelgard was faster and, by far, the better grappler. One moment, Dorothea had their bodies pressed together and Edelgard’s right arm captured. Then Edelgard twisted to the side. Some space opened between their hips, and Dorothea was on her back with her hands pinned above her head and Edelgard straddling her stomach. The skirt of her dress flowed up to Dorothea’s chest. 

“I see I’ll have to be stricter with you than usual,” Edelgard said. She squeezed her thighs around Dorothea’s torso, and Dorothea gasped. Her ribs, one by one, flared to life, like someone lighting candles for a church service. “What do you want? What would you like from your emperor?” 

“You,” Dorothea said. It was a position they had been in before, except in the back of her head, she was thinking, She’s mine, she’s mine, she’s really mine, and that gave everything an intensity that made the sunlight brighter, the flowers a riot of reds and whites and yellows in her peripheral vision, Edelgard some kind of beautiful demon who had her ring on her neck. “Edie, will you?” 

“Is it hard to wait? Let me help.” 

She undid two buttons of Dorothea’s shirt, just enough to create a diamond opening stretching across Dorothea’s breasts. She widened the opening with her thumb and pinky and rubbed circles into Dorothea’s chest through her undershirt and breast bindings. Her touch was light enough that when Dorothea exhaled, her fingers passed out of reach; she had to take shallow breaths and keep her lungs large with air to stay in contact. Edelgard’s other hand came up to Dorothea’s lips and traced them just as lightly. Dorothea couldn’t help herself. When her fingers reached the center of her mouth, Dorothea licked them. Edelgard let her bite her glove, and, with Dorothea’s teeth holding onto the seam of a fingertip, eased her hand out of the silk. She tucked it between Dorothea’s breasts with a cool, efficient bend of her wrist. She rested two fingers against Dorothea’s lower lip. Dorothea wrapped her tongue around them, licking at them frantically, as though doing so might convince Edelgard to take her right there in the grass. 

The harder Dorothea licked and sucked on her fingers, the more firmly Edelgard touched her through the opening in her shirt. Edelgard had three fingers in her mouth now—they felt _big_ and intrusive—sliding them back and forth, unless Dorothea sucked them or wrapped her tongue around the right finger and used her tongue to feel each joint, each crease, each scar. When Dorothea did that, Edelgard’s breath would hitch; her hot weight would settle more firmly against Dorothea’s stomach, her fingers would bear down on her sternum, like she was trying to reach inside of her. Dorothea couldn’t look away from her face, cool despite how hard she was pushing Dorothea’s mouth. Dorothea could feel heat building between her thighs, in the length of her tongue and the roof of her mouth. The heat, almost paradoxically, steadied her. She was grounded to the damp grass against her back and hair, the sensation of Edelgard’s bare skin in her mouth and the layers of cloth over her breasts. She tried to form words and moaned when she couldn’t. 

Edelgard removed her fingers from her mouth and cleaned Dorothea’s face with her sleeve. It was something she always did, except this time it made something go soft within her. Mostly her wits. The perfume on her wrist smelled of sandalwood and cloves today, the same perfume Dorothea had requested her last letter to be scented with. One of those details Edelgard was good at remembering, and that Dorothea never expected. 

“How do you feel?” Edelgard said. 

“Good. Good.” Her tongue felt less coordinated than usual and her breath short. She had to be helped to her feet. 

This time, when they went to the faculty quarters, she took Dorothea to her bedroom and then straight to bed. The room had belonged to some professor neither of them knew, to her relief. The sheets were fresh, the red and black blankets from Edelgard’s travel set. Edelgard put Dorothea on her back while she unbuttoned Dorothea’s shirt, removed her undershirt, and carefully unlaced the supports keeping Dorothea’s breasts secure. 

“You look marvelous,” she said, kissing her collarbone. Her hands covered Dorothea’s breasts, her fingers making dry shapes and headed for her nipples. She bumped into the glove she had stuck into Dorothea’s cleavage and cast it aside. “It’s not just your beauty I see when I say that.”

“What do you see?” Dorothea said.

“Someone who’s loyal, canny, and strong,” Edelgard said instantly. “Someone who believes in my cause and believes in _me_. Who knows me and loves me even so.” 

Dorothea’s skin and bones felt fresh and alive and in desperate, terrible need to feel Edelgard’s skin on hers. “Get out of all this, darling. Show yourself to me.” 

“Hold, Dorothea, until—”

“Edie, you’re sumptuous in that dress, but I love seeing you naked. On top of me, or even better, underneath.” 

“Oh, all right,” Edelgard said. “‘Sumptuous?’ Isn’t that much?” 

“You don’t see what I see.” She hesitated, even though Edelgard was already moving on from the compliment—it was hard to keep her attention with those. They were different in that respect. “When they start putting on operas of you, none of the prima donnas will be beautiful enough to play you.” 

“I’m glad you recognize the only person beautiful enough to play me will be too busy playing herself on the stage,” she said. She sat on the bed and reached behind herself to undo the buttons. Her movements were reticent in a way Dorothea hadn’t expected based on the heat of her hands and mouth. It occurred to Dorothea that Edelgard probably had fantasies about candlelight and rose petals. And eye contact and a lot of whispering. And surprisingly revealing nightgowns and lacy underthings she could remove with her teeth. The kind of thing Dorothea had once wanted when she was in the opera. Growing up had put most of those fantasies to rest. It wasn’t as though Dorothea had abandoned them entirely, only that it still felt forbidden to her, all too romantic for someone she had mostly bedded between war campaigns or during them. She felt a stab of guilt. 

“I’m sorry. I need a second. I want to make this special for you, too,” she said. 

“It will be special for me, no matter what happens. I promise.” Her dress, unbuttoned in the back, drifted away from her shoulders. “I’ve gone about this the wrong way. What do you want?” 

“I want to do this your way,” she said, flushing. “I want you to have what you’ve been dreaming of.” 

“And I’d like what you’d—we’re looping.” Dorothea recognized the look on Edelgard’s face as the look that came on when Ferdinand and Hubert were disagreeing, or worse, agreeing, about the same thing on different points and couldn’t bear to let the other person have the last word in. “I suppose it’d be too much to expect everything in this engagement to go smoothly.” 

“Let’s get you out of this, and then we’ll talk.” 

Edelgard had one arm out of her dress, revealing her slip and one muscled shoulder. Dorothea tugged at the other sleeve, and the front of the dress fell away. Edelgard stepped out of the dress, then knelt on the bed so Dorothea could remove her slip and underwear. A tight and delicious tension filled her. Mine, she thought.

Once Edelgard was naked, she kissed Dorothea’s hands and palms as she removed the rings from her fingers. At first, Dorothea tried to laugh her off and take her hand back, but Edelgard’s grip on her arm became firm and insistent. She looked up, and Dorothea’s will to resist faded. 

“I love you,” Edelgard said. She rubbed her thumb over Dorothea’s fingers, as though to reassure herself. 

“I love you, too,” she said. Like the idiot she was, she was getting teary-eyed. She was almost used to seeing it in writing at this point, but hearing it was still novel. 

Edelgard smiled shyly. Then she tossed her hair over her shoulder and said, “Did you like having my fingers in your mouth?” 

“I did. I like it when you fuck my mouth like that. With your hand or with your pussy, I don’t mind. Remember the first time I asked you to suck my cock? You were so mad.”

“Unless you brought one with you, stop trying to distract me.” She put her hands on Dorothea’s shoulders and pushed her down onto the bed. She coaxed Dorothea further up, towards the pillows. Her hand applied steady pressure just below Dorothea’s navel. “Open up.” Dorothea smiled and rolled her shoulders and let the movement go down her spine and hips. She spread her legs. Edelgard’s eyes followed her movements. Then she ran three fingers along Dorothea’s lower lip. “Here, too,” she said. 

It was almost embarrassing how quickly she put Edelgard’s fingers on her tongue. It felt urgent, especially as the hand on her stomach traveled up to rest on her waist instead of down. Edelgard didn’t thrust in this time. She rested three fingers half in Dorothea’s mouth, spreading her lips open, while she took Dorothea’s breast in her hand and squeezed it idly. 

Dorothea felt less competent with her mouth than before, or, at the very least, more desperate. She had to use her tongue to group the fingers closer together so she could close her lips around them and keep herself from drooling onto the sheets. She worked her mouth on Edelgard’s hand, licking and sucking; below, she pushed her chest further out, trying to get Edelgard to stop feeling her up and start pleasuring her for real. Her thighs rubbed together. She tried to say something, even knowing it’d be futile—worse than futile, when Edelgard caught her tongue between two fingers. She had on a wicked smile. 

“Why must you be so beautiful, Dorothea?” she said, sighing happily. “How am I really yours?” 

Another finger, pushing in from the side. Dorothea writhed on the sheets. Her hips jerked uncertainly upwards. Edelgard’s fingers brushed over her nipple, and Dorothea’s jaw went wide and for a perfect moment, she had so much of Edelgard in her mouth that she couldn’t breathe. The stretch in her jaw made her cunt ache. She grabbed the chain on Edelgard’s neck and yanked until Edelgard’s face was near enough to kiss if her hand weren’t blocking it. Edelgard licked around her hand to touch Dorothea’s upper lip with her tongue, as though to say, This is mine. This body, that voice, your heart. 

She took her hand out of Dorothea’s mouth. The stretch was gone, and with it, it felt like, the only thing keeping her whole. Edelgard moved Dorothea’s hand from her neck to between her own legs. 

“Two fingers inside yourself,” she said and bent down to kiss Dorothea’s breasts. Dorothea did as she was told right as Edelgard took one nipple into her mouth and rubbed the other with her spit-slick fingers. Moans spilled out of her mouth, but Edelgard made no move to touch her the way she needed. If anything, the whimpers and moans only made Edelgard slower and more determined to be precise. She looked, desperately, at Edelgard to see if she was pleased by the wet sounds between her legs or how hard her nipples were or maybe the heat of her skin, unmarked by any love bites or bruises from their time apart. 

“Please let me see your face,” she said. “Edie, I can’t see anything but the top of your head. I need to see your face.” 

Edelgard rolled onto her side and moved higher up on the bed as requested. Dorothea wrapped her arms around Edelgard’s shoulders. It’d be easy to pull her hair, replace the heaviness of the crown with stinging pain, the way they both liked it. Instead, her hand took hold of the chain and ring. Her fingers were right against Edelgard’s neck. 

“How many fingers are you up to now?” Edelgard said, rubbing Dorothea’s nipple with her palm. Her other hand, descending, traced shapes into Dorothea’s stomach. 

“Two. Two, as you said.” She hadn’t been told to touch her clit, but if she angled her fingers, she could reach the spot on her front wall and come if Edelgard played her nipples right. 

“Good. Add another one. Stretch yourself out for me.” 

Three fingers went in easy. She was trying to fuck herself as hard as Edelgard did, but she couldn’t get the speed, the force, and the right angle to come together at the same time. Edelgard's fingers applied delicate touches to her thighs and hips, making their slow way to her core. Dorothea fell back into the mattress in defeat. “It’s not the same, Edie. It’s not the same as having you in me,” she said. 

“You’ll have me. I promise. Keep going.” Edelgard’s fingers reached her clit. She didn’t waste time fitting a finger into Dorothea, moving it along with Dorothea’s three. “Good,” she said, kissing Dorothea’s ear and cheek. “I love you.”

Edelgard’s slicked up fingers were directly on her clit, and suddenly it was too much: the lips on her cheek, the bite of the chain around her fingers, the way her cunt pounded with blood flowing in. She felt stretched like a piece of cloth over the open mouth of a drinking glass. “Edie, say that again.”

“I love you, Dorothea. I’d ruin a hundred cities… I’d build you a house—stop pulling, it’s starting to hurt. Dorothea, I’m going to make you come.” 

Dorothea flung her hand into Edelgard’s hair and pulled, trying to kiss Edelgard on the mouth and landing on her ear instead. Her cunt squeezed around her fingers in time with the movements of Edelgard’s fingers on her clit. “You’re mine,” she said. “You’re mine, you really are. I love you. Please, love me, Edie. Don’t stop—” Edelgard’s mouth moved down to her neck, right on her pulse, and Dorothea’s words turned into moans. She rammed her fingers deep inside herself, holding them in place as the heat in her breasts and cunt spiraled out. She tried to say more, but all she could manage were the vowels, broken up by her gasps for more air. Her fingers fell out of her. 

“Good. Very good,” Edelgard said. “It’s not enough, is it?” 

“You know it’s not. I want more,” she said. Edelgard smoothed her hair out of her face. She stopped touching Dorothea’s clit, though the hand on Dorothea’s breast kept moving. Dorothea bit her lip as more sparks of pleasure spread from her chest down to her thighs, up to her face, in the tip of her ears. There was a wet spot under her. 

“I’m going to get a towel and some oil. Wait just a moment.” 

“No, no. Don’t leave me yet. Stay.” 

She wrapped her legs around Edelgard’s waist and tried to keep her there, and somehow it worked. There was a look almost like pity in Edelgard’s eyes, soft and indulgent, like everything Dorothea did pleased her. She curled against her, and Dorothea folded her body around her and waited for her breath to come back. Then she could breathe normally again and all she wanted was to stay in bed and be held. 

Eventually, the sound of footsteps going up and down the hall—not Hubert; sounded like guards changing shifts, two coming down the hall and a different set of footsteps leaving—got her to look up. 

“Do you have a meeting?” Dorothea said. “How much time do we have?” 

“I have nothing scheduled tonight. Not even Hubert.” Edelgard’s hands swept up and down her back; slid down, further. “If you marry me tomorrow, I could take time away for a honeymoon. Two days, even.” 

“You’re a _cad_. In another life, you’d barge your way into the backstage at the opera to bully me with a bouquet of flowers.” 

“You wouldn’t think of it as bullying for long. You’d come around.” 

Edelgard’s thumb brushed over her tailbone, and Dorothea arched off the bed to make more room for Edelgard’s hands to get more of the floaty, shivery pleasure. She pushed off her heels, brought her feet under her knees. She buried her face into Edelgard’s shoulder again. “Edie, sometimes your hands…” She felt Edelgard’s smile against the crown of her head. 

Edelgard fit her other hand high up on Dorothea’s thigh, high enough for her fingers to get caught in the crease between leg and groin. Another sensitive spot. Dorothea was caught front and back. She turned her face up, hoping for a kiss that would get Edelgard’s tongue to run along the high arch of the roof of her mouth. Her lips throbbed in anticipation. Instead, Edelgard kissed the corners of her mouth and chin. 

“I promised that you’d have me in you,” Edelgard said. “How much do you think you can take?” 

“All of you,” she said instantly. “Everything, Edie, give me your whole hand.” She grabbed Edelgard’s wrist and ground her slit against it to prove just how wet she was, wet enough that she was almost shocked by it herself. “You wouldn’t even have to use any oil. You could push all the way in right now.” 

“Mm, could I.” 

“Try it and see,” she said, and Edelgard’s knowing smile and the two fingers stroking her labia apart was almost everything she wanted. Edelgard’s fingers switched between circling her entrance and her clit. Dorothea tried to force her hips down, but Edelgard was faster and more capable of being patient—of being, Dorothea thought, biting her lip, a tease. “Edie, I’m yours. I’m ready—why aren’t you? What are you waiting for _this_ time?” 

“You’re certain it won’t hurt?” she said, rubbing her hole with the length of her fingers, a kind of idle and gentle torture. “It’s been a long time since we’ve tried. Are you sure—”

“Just make me come a few more times, and I’ll be able to fit a horse. Don’t talk about hurting me when you haven’t even tried more than a finger.” She licked her lips and set her legs on Edelgard’s shoulders. It took more of her concentration than she wanted to admit to get one ankle in place; the other slid off Edelgard’s bicep and onto her waist. “Making love doesn’t have to just a few fingers and your tongue, as nice as those are. I could make love to you and ravish you with my cock at the same time. You’ll make it good for me, wouldn’t you, Your Majesty?” 

“Is that what you feel when I fist you? In love?” Edelgard said. 

Ah, Dorothea thought. A challenge. Dorothea tightened her legs and pulled her closer. “I like it when you’re the only thing I can feel. You’re the only person I’d trust to touch me that way. What do you like about it? You never say no.” 

Edelgard flushed. “Owning you.” She stared down at Dorothea, watching her close. “See? I knew you wouldn’t like that.” 

“I don’t mind it,” Dorothea said. Her own face was red now. “As long as you mean all of me.” 

“I do.” She leaned over to kiss Dorothea, one of her deep and overpowering kisses. Her hands stayed between Dorothea’s legs, spreading her legs further apart. Dorothea was almost too distracted by the intensity of Edelgard’s kiss to notice the change in urgency in Edelgard’s hands. Two fingers pushed into her. She added another barely a second later and massaged her deep from the inside. “Do you feel good? Is this too much?” 

“It’s not too much. It’s not enough. Are you holding back?” 

Edelgard pulled away to give her a flat look. Then her fingers moved a hair to the left and she made tight, concentrated circles directly on Dorothea’s clit, and everything from Dorothea’s navel down was pure electricity. Her legs were shaking, and her hands fell on Edelgard’s back, pulling her close enough that she could feel Edelgard’s nipples hardening. 

“It feels nice, doesn’t it?” Edelgard said, pleased with herself. The circles on her clit became more focused. “I almost wish I could do this to myself.” 

“Edie!” The back of her head hit the mattress two, three times. Edelgard cradled her head with her hand—slick, but Dorothea was beyond caring—as she rode it out. She kissed Dorothea again and got off the bed. Dorothea put her hand between her legs, feeling her labia and her clit. She imagined Edelgard’s fingers filling her, the width of her whole hand nestled inside her, and rubbed herself harder. 

Edelgard returned with a pile of towels, a jar of oil resting on top, and a glass of water held between her chin and the towels. She had Dorothea sit up and drink the water while she massaged Dorothea’s calves to keep her from cramping when she came. She let Dorothea keep touching herself through the message. Her eyes were fixed on Dorothea’s pussy. Not a surprise when Edelgard put her face there, nudging Dorothea’s hands away with her nose and cheek. Her hair, unbound, fell around the inside of Dorothea’s thighs and got caught against her own cheek. 

“I want—” Her voice was muffled, but the message was clear: she wanted to use her mouth. She looked up to see if Dorothea would stop her. 

“Do you want to eat me out for my pleasure or for yours?” Dorothea said. “You look like you’re only thinking about yourself. I’ll let you rub one out to help you get it out of your system. How about that?” 

“Mm. Yes, please.” Edelgard kissed Dorothea’s thighs, not in much of a hurry. Heat spread out from her cunt, up to her belly, down to her knees. It was pleasant and easy to take. It’d keep her aroused enough, but it wasn’t going to get Dorothea any closer to what she wanted. 

“What are you doing down there?” Dorothea said. She pulled Edelgard’s hair to make her mouth work faster. “If you don’t want a bald spot, start fucking yourself.” Edelgard made a noise. It sounded like protest. Dorothea hooked her fingers into the chain and pulled again, and this time Edelgard’s hand went directly between her legs. “You heard me.” 

Edelgard’s hips were thrusting to meet her hand now. She had her tongue flat against Dorothea’s pussy and eyes shut as she dragged her whole face up and down. It wasn’t enough to make Dorothea come, but the sight of Edelgard crying and moaning her way through her climax nearly was. When Edelgard was done, she turned her face against Dorothea’s thigh and wrapped her arms around her leg. 

“Couldn’t resist, hmm?” Dorothea said. She pet Edelgard’s head. “Are you ready?” 

Her hands came up to Dorothea’s stomach and cut burning lines up and down her sides, and suddenly Dorothea was right on the edge again. “You’re more selfish than I expected today.”

“I’m impatient. You’ve kept me waiting.” She watched as Edelgard pushed herself back onto her knees. Something about the movement of her shoulder, the turn of joint and muscle, left her feeling dismantled. “You don’t know how much I’ve wanted you.” 

Edelgard poured oil into her palm and rubbed it into her hand and wrist, then started working it around and in Dorothea’s entrance. 

“They fed you well in Brigid,” she said. “Did you take any toys with you?” 

“I did. I took all the big ones. Did you notice?” 

“I noticed they were gone, yes. Let me see if you’ve been using them.” 

Three fingers, straight away, with her palm facing down. Edelgard’s hand remembered, almost exactly, the angle needed to get in deep. She had come enough times that her climax kept pushing itself away from her, but she felt close, so close. Tears leaked out of her eyes. She turned her face into the pillow to wipe them away. 

“Talk to me,” Dorothea said. “Say pussy for me, Your Majesty.” 

“Take a deep breath and tilt your head back.” Just like Edelgard to respond to an order with another order. She wasn’t one for dirty talk, but she never denied Dorothea a few lines if asked. Dorothea shut her eyes, breathed in deep, and stretched her spine out, and was rewarded with a fourth finger entering—sliding in so easy that Edelgard’s knuckles were suddenly pressed right against her. Her hips bucked, and Edelgard’s smile, for a fleeting moment, was as broad and triumphant as it was when she was out riding for pleasure. This was always the point when Dorothea’s mind left her. She had never welcomed it as much as she did now. “I like how my hand looks in your mouth, but it looks better in your pussy. It’ll look better when I can’t even see it, when it’s all the way inside you. Do you want me to push all the way in?” 

“ _Yes_ , please. Please, Edie.” 

Edelgard’s fingers worked inside her, and she was no longer capable of hearing or saying anything. Her cunt felt each segment of Edelgard’s slippery fingers against her walls. Edelgard was never forceful or rough when she did this, but she was relentless, never ceding space taken. Each shallow thrust in commanded her to open further, spread wider, make more room. She couldn’t tell if seconds passed or minutes; when she opened her eyes, the light outside had a golden tinge. They had passed from the glaring brightness of midday to a later, more sensuous light. 

Edelgard shook her knee, and Dorothea’s attention flicked from the headboard to her body, fiery from the intensity of their lovemaking, to the places where they were joined. Edelgard’s skin had gone pink from exertion. Half of her hand was already inside. She looked riveted by Dorothea, utterly drawn in. Dorothea wanted to be looked at that way until the end of her life. “My thumb’s almost in. Can you take it?” 

“I can, I can, I can. I can take it.” 

“Don’t bite your lip. You’ll make yourself bleed. I want to hear you.” 

They were at the point where the stretch felt almost impossible. Edelgard kept pausing to add more oil. Dorothea’s eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling, and her hands fell away from Edelgard’s shoulders to cover her own face. The pressure of the thumb against her entrance kept sending shocks through her, tightening her cunt and throat. She couldn’t tell if she was coming or not. Every sensation registered at the same intensity: the hot kisses and bites on her thighs, the knuckles twisting for position, the space beyond her fingertips waiting almost ecstatically to be touched. Occasionally, her own voice would float back into her ears, a scramble of “Edie,” and “Baby, I’m dying,” and “So much. Don’t stop,” and a series of noises that sounded like sobs, and Edelgard’s voice right by her stomach: “I’m not going to stop. I won’t. Nothing will keep me from having you—” 

Then, more calmly, she said, “I’m almost all the way in you. Tilt your hips for me.” 

Dorothea wasn’t aware of doing so, but she must have. The pressure all around her entrance broke, and there was a dizzying rush as the space inside her body and outside it inverted. She was both within her body and not, the hand tight inside her cunt and squeezing her body at the same time. Edelgard turned her hand inside her and adjusted her fingers until her knuckles rubbed against what felt like every sensitive spot inside her. Her body felt like it had gone beyond relaxed to liquid. The beat of her heart felt like ripples running from her chest to the ends of her body and back again. 

“I can’t breathe without feeling you,” she said, or meant to. The only words that made it out were, “can’t breathe,” released between gasps of air. 

“Touch your mouth and breathe out from it. In through your nose. Wipe your tears.” Dorothea did all of that, barely able to believe she still had arms. They felt airy and somehow not hers; she moved them on Edelgard’s commands, not her own. She covered her eyes with her palms and tried to keep breathing. “Seeing you like this makes me wish there was a goddess I could pray to. I’d thank her for once.” 

Dorothea’s cunt seized around Edelgard’s hand at the words. Her feet pushed against bed; she tried to say something, to tell Edelgard to start moving, but her tongue was enormous in her mouth and stuck. All that came out were noises that might as well have come from an animal. It’d be frightening, if she had the space to feel it. 

“Nod for me,” Edelgard said. “Shake your head. Are you hurt?” She ran her finger from her wrist to the top of Dorothea’s slit, skating around her clit. “I’m going to start moving. Can I?” 

The extended interval of stillness, Dorothea realized, was her waiting for a sign. She jerked her head up and down. Edelgard didn’t thrust more than an inch forward and back, but Dorothea felt each movement in her whole body: in her asshole, her lungs, the inside of her ears. She felt, for once, not scared to be empty. If anything, there was too much space in her that would never be touched. 

Every time she opened her eyes, the light coming through the window was a different color. She started hoping to see the day cycle all the way through, for her mind to stay high on the pleasure until dawn, or even later. She looked down the length of her body, and Edelgard met her gaze. Her face and neck were covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and her lips were swollen; she had been biting them, even as she told Dorothea to not bite hers. 

“How do you feel?” Edelgard said. “Ready to come?” 

“I haven’t already?” 

“Oh, no. I would’ve felt it, believe me.” Edelgard laughed and pet her clit, and Dorothea’s lower body became a mess of nerves, firing all at once. 

“Edie! Edie, I’m going to… I need to…” She ran out of air before she could say anything more. 

“You will. Keep breathing,” she said. 

Edelgard started thrusting again, a few short turns in and out. Then she pushed her hand in, slow and deliberate, as far as it’d go, and Dorothea clutched at her own arms and neck before her hands made it back over her face. Her eyes were wet again. Tears flowed out, forcibly displaced by the hand filling up her cunt. The thrusts were longer and slower, even as Dorothea begged for her to go faster and reach in deeper. It felt good in a way almost impossible to bear. 

She could hear Edelgard talking to her, asking for permission to do something—she didn’t understand much more than ‘mouth,’ and she almost started crying at the thought. She nodded, and her clit was taken into a wet, sucking heat, and it no longer mattered whether she could breathe or feel anything. She was coming so hard that she’d probably have the shape of Edelgard’s hand inside her cunt forever. She wanted that. She wanted to reach into herself and know Edelgard had been there. 

When she came to, she wasn’t totally sure it was actually over. Her cunt kept twitching around Edelgard’s hand. Edelgard was busy kissing the insides of her thighs, lingering occasionally to bite and suck a mark. When she noticed Dorothea had come back to herself, she stopped. 

“How are you?” she said. 

“I’m—” She started laughing, except that made her cunt clench around Edelgard’s hand again. “I’m very good, Your Majesty. You made me feel perfect. How do you do that?”

“It’s you. You’re how I manage it. I need my hand back.” 

“I can’t.” Her mouth got stuck on the vowels. Her mouth was parched. She tried to wink—lost cause—and said, “I’m not giving it back.” Edelgard went back to leaving marks on her thighs. The need to come again pushed at her from the inside, except this time edged with the knowledge that it’d probably hurt. She managed to get her hand on Edelgard’s head. “Edie, you’re going to make me…” Edelgard moved her fingers to make her hand narrower, and Dorothea sucked a breath in. She tried to close her legs. The motion made the hand lodged in her feel huge, in a way it hadn’t before. She was ready to be empty again. 

“You’re doing well,” Edelgard said when they reached the difficult stretch again, this time in reverse. “I can’t wait to kiss your lips again. Your cheeks, your eyes.” 

“Edie,” she said, shaking despite herself. Her clit throbbed. She couldn’t tell if she needed to come or if she needed to pass out. “You were perfect. So perfect. Oh—go slow. Slower.” 

“Sorry. I always think it must be easier on the way out.” She seemed more entranced by the sight of her hand exiting Dorothea’s body than she had when it went in. With a bit more effort, her hand was free. Dripping wet, wrinkled, and oddly foreign looking now that it was out in the air. Edelgard stretched her fingers out, massaged her wrist. She pulled blankets around Dorothea; Dorothea hadn’t even noticed she was cold. She kissed Dorothea, catching her cheek with her wet hand. Dorothea put her hand over it, flattening her palm on her cheek and smearing the wetness across her face and chin and neck. Dirty, but in a way she liked. She took Edelgard’s thumb into her mouth and licked it a few times before Edelgard pulled her hand away. 

“I’m going to get some water,” she said. She kissed the top of her head and left. 

When she came back, she had more towels and a tray with a pitcher and a second glass. The insides of her thighs were slick. Dorothea reached out to touch the wetness—she was so messed up that she missed and wound up poking air. 

“What do you want?” Edelgard said, putting the tray on the nightstand. 

“I want to be close to you, please.” When Edelgard was close enough, she wrapped her arms around her thighs and used her hold to pull herself to a sitting position. “Was I good, Edie? Beautiful?” 

“Wonderful. Too beautiful. What’s the point in painting when I have the real thing?” Edelgard rubbed her shoulder and kissed her, then had her drink water. Dorothea wound up downing half of Edelgard’s glass, too. 

When she was done drinking, she pulled Edelgard under the covers. She meant to talk or, at the very least, return some of Edelgard’s kisses, but drifted off instead. 

She woke up with a start, and her waking roused Edelgard, too. Edelgard blinked a few times, then said, “It’s almost teatime.” 

“Tea?” Dorothea said. “Forget tea. I want my turn.” 

“You’ve had plenty of turns, unless you’ve forgotten.” 

“I mean on you,” she said. “I still want to touch you, too. Sit on my face, Edie. I want to die happy.”

“I don’t want to have a tragically dead fiancée. Hold on.” She had Dorothea bend one knee and climbed on top of her thigh. She started kissing Dorothea, an undemanding lip-to-lip touch. Dorothea let her grind away, occasionally flexing her leg or pushing her hips catch her clit differently or to change the pressure. The pressure and wetness sent sympathetic heat into her own cunt, though without the burning need to come. Edelgard used one hand to brace herself over Dorothea, and the other hand held onto the chain on her neck, her fingers playing with the ring as though it was a part of her body. Dorothea put her arm around Edelgard’s shoulders to keep her close. This close, she could see the bright red line from where she had pulled the chain earlier. She rubbed at the chafed skin and felt Edelgard shudder against her hand. 

After a few minutes, Edelgard had to stop kissing her and focused just on grinding down. She was hot and wet, so wet to the touch; her face had that aching, open look, the one she got when she was holding back words. 

“What are you about to say, Edie?” Dorothea said. “Do you need to tell me something?” 

“I love you,” she said, and Dorothea felt her nipples tighten. She wondered if that would always happen, or if she’d get used to it somewhere down the line. Some hypothetical future when she took love for granted, like crickets thinking only of the harvest. “Say what you always say when you’re in control. Please.” 

“But I know you love me.” She rested her fingers on Edelgard’s lower back. “We don’t have to play that game anymore.”

“I like it when—” She shivered, tensing her thighs to fight back her peak. “—you ask for the proof.” 

All of her feelings felt like they were pooling right underneath her skin, like blood under a blister. She always did like to hear Edelgard beg. “Ask again,” she said. “Ask again, and I’ll let you.” 

“Please,” Edelgard said. She hardly sounded like herself, her voice pitched half an octave up. Her whole body, hot and powerful, writhed against Dorothea’s. “I want to come for you, I want to be yours.” Dorothea held her silence. It was, she thought, only a little cruel of her to make Edelgard march herself right to the edge, to the point where her eyes unfocused and breaths came short, then make her take herself back down before she could tip over. “Dorothea…” 

“I’ll let you. But I want you to keep going first.” Edelgard bit her lower lip and went again. Dorothea let her fingers travel along her ass, kneading it and moving closer to the center. She gathered slickness off her thigh and in Edelgard’s crack, then brought her fingers to her asshole. It twitched against Dorothea’s fingers. 

“You’re going to make me lose control,” she said, even as she tilted her hips up. Her clit slid frictionless against Dorothea’s skin. Dorothea suddenly wished Edelgard had agreed to sit on her face before, so she could feel how wet she was against her chin and lips. She thrust up a few times and watched Edelgard bare her teeth.

“You’re the emperor, Edie. You can do this.” Dorothea massaged more of the slickness into her hole. Edelgard was trying to both clench down on Dorothea’s leg for friction and spread her legs at the same time. She clenched her teeth and let out a throttled scream. “If you weren’t the emperor, I’d call you pretty all the time. I want you to beg for it.” 

“Please, let me come,” she said, earnest and heartfelt. She started grinding again. “I belong to you. No one else has a claim on me. I’m all yours, I always will be. Any of your enemies, I’ll shatter. Anything in your path, I’ll burn. Dorothea, won’t you? Please?” She rubbed her forehead and cheek against Dorothea’s shoulder and put uncoordinated, sloppy kisses on her collarbone. Dorothea knew what she was trying to do: she was trying to hide her face so Dorothea couldn’t see if she accidentally got herself off too soon. Dorothea dug her nails into her crack until Edelgard went still. 

“Don’t make me do that again,” she said. “Edie, let me see your face. I’ll give you a finger if you do.” Edelgard lifted her chin. Her hair was tangling on the side of her head and her expression faintly resentful, but still willing. Dorothea patted her ass, and she started moving again with a sigh. She could tell Edelgard to bring herself to the brink for the rest of the afternoon, and Edelgard would do it, at least another two or three times. Who else would she do that for? No one else. 

The tip of Dorothea’s middle finger sank into her hole, and Edelgard’s knees spread out on the sheets. Her ass opened up further, and Dorothea’s finger went into the second knuckle, past the tight rim and into the surprising softness within. She moved her finger in a circle, working her way in deeper, and Edelgard’s hips followed the motion of her hands. Clockwise, then counterclockwise. She was always so easy to control once she had something up her ass. Dorothea was going to be nice this time, though. She’d draw it out for only a little more instead of forcing Edelgard to keep going until she was too sore and sensitive to want it and making her come anyway. She’d draw it out just enough so she could take Edelgard’s defenses apart, the way Edelgard had done for her. 

“Dorothea, oh… Please, please, I’m begging you, I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m…” Too close to the edge for Dorothea’s liking. Dorothea tugged at the rim of her hole, and Edelgard hissed and stilled again. “You’re being cruel.”

“One more finger, and I’ll let you. You’re so close.” 

“I won’t. Not unless you promise to let me come,” she said, her hand playing frantically the engagement ring. “I can get myself off without all of this contrivance.”

“‘Contrivance?’ You asked for this! If I were a meaner person, I’d make you work for it for the rest of the night. Beg for my finger.” 

“Fine. Please fuck me. Please fuck me the way you want to,” Edelgard said. She lowered her head to Dorothea’s shoulder and kissed it. She didn’t sound like she was genuinely supplicating, but Dorothea’s control was weak. Her ring finger went in easy. Tight, but not a struggle. Dorothea put more pressure as she made her circle, and Edelgard went almost flat against her. 

“Good?” she said. Edelgard nodded. Her eyes were shut, as they usually were when she was savoring a deep pleasure. Oh, that’s mine, she thought. She’s mine. No matter how pushy or mouthy Edelgard could be, she’d always be hers. “You’re almost there. Don’t hold back this time.” 

She opened her eyes. “Thank you,” she said and started moving again—too slow, Dorothea thought, to really come. She had her tongue between her teeth, and Dorothea had to kiss her to get her mouth soft and pliant again. She tilted her hips and moved her leg in circles to match her fingers until she felt Edelgard dripping around her thigh and clenching rhythmically around the fingers in her asshole. She whimpered against Dorothea’s tongue and lips, and when she managed to break free of Dorothea’s mouth, she said her name in the right tone and not much else. The inside of Dorothea’s chest felt like a pool of melted candle wax. She needed to see it happen. She needed to see Edelgard come, not just feel it. She broke the kiss.

“If you really love me, then come for me,” she said. “Don’t make me wait.” 

Edelgard came barely a second later. They were so close that Dorothea could see the individual fluttering of Edelgard’s eyelashes as she struggled to keep her eyes open so she could keep looking at Dorothea; so close that she could feel Edelgard’s pulse on her cheek. 

Dorothea pet the chain on Edelgard’s neck and the reddened skin beneath. Her ribs felt too tight to contain her chest. Beauty was an awful thing: it arrived for no reason, then vanished, taking away what it had claimed. But it didn’t have to be something that, like rain, came and went for no reason. It was something she could give people and receive in return. 

“Edie,” she said. And just as Dorothea knew she would, even though she was still riding high, Edelgard opened her eyes so Dorothea could see herself in them. 

#

Edelgard passed out immediately. Despite how tired and sore her body was, Dorothea couldn’t stay under the covers for long. She got up, on wobbly, shaking legs, to clean up. 

Edelgard had prepared a wash basin in the bathroom. The water was scented with orange and lavender oil, and a bar of Edelgard’s soap rested in the dish. Dorothea heated up the water, casting a look over her shoulder occasionally to see if Edelgard had woken up, and cleaned her face and upper body. When the towel came between her legs, she looked back again. Then she went back to the bed and shook Edelgard awake. 

“You smell nice,” Edelgard said without lifting her head from the pillow. 

Dorothea patted her cheek then kissed her. “Come join me.” 

She pulled Edelgard out of bed. Once they were in the bathroom, Edelgard knelt to finish cleaning her up while Dorothea sat on a stool and washed her hair to get the come and drool out of it. 

“You know, if my life had turned out differently, I could have been one of the servants in charge of cleaning you,” Dorothea said. 

Edelgard rubbed her knees. Her eyebrows were pushed together, the way they did when she knew they were talking about something sensitive. “You’re too clever and talented to end up in that position.” 

“You just say that because you’re in love. Bathing the emperor’s a cushy job. I’d have enough money for a good apartment in a nice part of the city, enough money to pay a tutor so I could train one of my talented children in some other work… unless I tried my hand at seducing the emperor and got fired by Hubie.” She strained the water out of her hair. It was even longer when it was wet. She’d have to get it cut soon. She looked between her legs, where Edelgard was soaping up her thighs and knees. “Do you like cleaning me?” she said, trying to pass it off as a flirtatious remark instead of the creeping fear that she was about to ruin the mood. 

“I like cleaning up my messes, and I like touching you,” she said, giving the back of Dorothea’s knees a rough scrub that had Dorothea’s nerve endings firing straight into her cunt, then moving further down more gently. “It’s not complicated. I may be the emperor now, but that’s no reason to not wash my own body, nor is there any reason for me to not wash others, especially those I care for.” She wiped Dorothea with a clean washcloth, then knelt next to the basin and soaped herself up.

Dorothea beckoned her over. Edelgard turned around and passed Dorothea the soap so she could get her back. “Edie, what’s the dumbest thing you’d do for love?” 

“I can’t say that I consider anything I’ve done for you to be ‘dumb.’” She hesitated, then turned to look over her shoulder. “Do you regret waiting?” 

Dorothea laughed uncomfortably. “Wow. My answer’s that obvious?” 

“It’s not hard to figure out. Rinse my back, and I’ll take care of the rest.” 

“Edie, I can do it. I haven’t forgotten what you look like.” They changed places, Edelgard taking the stool and Dorothea kneeling in front of her. Soapsuds gathered in the grooves of her muscles and scars. Dorothea moved the washcloth over those gently. Edelgard’s eyes were fixed on hers. She never told Dorothea she had to stop looking, but she could become impatient if she thought Dorothea was staring.

“I spend a lot of time fixing you up,” Dorothea said. She tapped the scars she thought of as hers: one from where a ballista had punched straight through her armor and into her gut; a burn scar from one of Edelgard’s more foolish attempts to take on a nest of mages; the list went on. Dorothea had gotten pretty good at healing at some point. Each scar was faint and neatly contained the old wound. “You never tell anyone when you’re hurt, even when you’re bleeding into your plate.” 

“The emperor can’t be seen falling down. I’m going to get up now.” Edelgard had put two robes by the sink, and put one on. With her hair down, she still looked young, almost girlish. These days, it was a rare sight. Even now, she was pulling her hair back and up into a ponytail. She helped Dorothea up, steadying her with a hand on her hip when Dorothea’s thighs shook, and held the robe’s sleeves for Dorothea to slide her arms into. The silk flowed across her shoulders and arms like running water. Edelgard took a towel and wrapped Dorothea’s hair up. 

“One day, I’ll see you riding back from somewhere, and you’ll get out of the saddle and drop dead from some wound,” Dorothea said. 

Edelgard put a hand on each of Dorothea’s shoulders and said, “Dorothea, if you keep talking about this, you’re going to make yourself cry.” 

“What do you mean?” she said, although once she said that she could tell that was exactly what was going to happen. 

“You’re going to start talking about how I’ll fall off my horse and be trampled by her, or I’ll leave you for some—perceived emotional inadequacy, I don’t know. None of it is true.” 

“You’re not going to find me inadequate, are you? Or—” 

“I’d never find you inadequate in any way. I hope someday you’ll think the same of me.” They returned to the bedroom. Hidden away in an alcove was a table and a tea set, and some of that new tea Ferdinand imported from Dagda. It was, Edelgard said, one of the few kinds that Hubert genuinely enjoyed. “Let’s talk of other things. You pick.” 

Dorothea sniffed the tea leaves. It had a pungent, dry smell that made her tongue water. She looked at the tin. Two of the sides were stamped with the elaborate seal of House Aegir and the other two the double-headed eagle. A token of friendship. She looked up at Edelgard as she made tea. “What were you doing when you got my proposal?” 

“I was having dinner with Ferdinand and Duke Fraldarius. He’s more stubborn than I hoped.” 

“Was it awkward?” 

“I’m afraid when you’ve killed a man’s brother and nephew and subjected his lands to your rule, he tends to be resentful. Your letter came while we were having a tough roast pheasant. I opened the envelope and read the first page. Then I put it away.”

“That’s it?” Dorothea said. She had put too much effort in her writing to be put away so cavalierly. 

“The proposal was on page two.” 

“Oh, that’s right. You must’ve thought I was silly enough to send you an ‘I miss you’ letter by Warp.” 

“My first assumption was that you were in danger. Or something terrible had happened to Petra or Caspar in Brigid. Or that you decided to leave me. The tea’s ready.” 

“I wouldn’t have left you by letter.” The tea had a strange, funky scent, and when she drank it, her mouth felt oddly dry. Hard to believe this was a fruit tea. “Okay, so you were having dinner with Duke Fraldarius and Ferdie. Were you thinking about what I said?” 

“I was. I can’t remember what else we ate, and I let Ferdinand go on too long. When I finished dinner, I went to my rooms and finished reading. Then I woke up Hubert and made him read it so I knew it was real.” 

“Really, you went to Hubie right away?” 

“He was very happy for me. For us. He read some parts out loud. He does that with your letters quite often. Did I tell you?”

“Yes, you wrote me a few weeks ago.” She drained her cup. She couldn’t imagine this would taste better once it cooled down. She liked the image of Hubert reading her words to Edelgard, the two of them sitting together in some dark part of Faerghus and holding her words up to a candle. “Were you happy?” 

“So much that it hurt.” She covered her mouth with her hand and turned her head to the window. 

“Don’t hide. Smile for me,” Dorothea said. Her own grin was already silly and wide. 

Edelgard let her hand drop down and turned her face back to Dorothea. Her smile contracted, then broadened again. She ran her hands down her thighs, trying to fight it. “My cheeks are going to cramp,” Edelgard complained. 

When they finished drinking tea, they changed the bedsheets and played cards side-by-side. Dorothea didn’t like the board games Edelgard and Hubert liked to play together, and they, bless them, had no particular talents at music. They’d gaze appreciatively at her, but getting them to sing or accompany her on an instrument of any kind, even though they were both technically trained in music, was a lost cause. Cards were what they played with her and Ferdinand, as a compromise. 

They liked teaching each other new games: Dorothea had the ones she learned on the streets and in the opera houses, and Edelgard and Hubert had gotten in the habit of inventing games with each other and testing them on others. Edelgard taught Dorothea a game Dorothea already knew from playing with Hubert and Lysithea. She pretended she didn’t know and let herself be taught. It was fun to watch Edelgard get excited about teaching her. It was more fun to crush Edelgard and watch her get mad. 

“What’s that they say about ‘beating you at your own game?’” Dorothea said after winning her third round. 

“Yes, congratulations. Such smugness is unbecoming,” Edelgard said, taking all the cards up and shuffling them again. 

“What’s really unbecoming is losing, Your Majesty. If you surrender, we can go to bed again, and you can try winning there.” 

“I was going easy on you, but now I see that my mercy was unwarranted,” she said, looking genuinely peeved. “Best of nine.” 

Dorothea took the cards Edelgard dealt her. She watched Edelgard chew at the side of her thumb as she considered her cards, watched Edelgard’s eyes flick up a few times, sometimes hoping to glean information about Dorothea’s hand and sometimes just to look. Their gazes met only for seconds before flying away from each other to look at their cards, the sweet rolls between them, the reddening glow of the summer evening through the window. Hubert would be coming to ask them about supper soon. 

“Dorothea,” Edelgard said. She was looking down at the gardens. The corners of her smile were like the first shoots of spring pushing out of the dirt. “It’s your move.”


	10. whose time is its own flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wedding, a birthday party, and a letter.

In the middle of Harpstring Moon of 1190, the Minister of the Imperial Household and the Prime Minister were wed in a cheerful ceremony in Enbarr. As befitting of Emperor Edelgard’s edicts for the new era, the extravagances were modest: a baffling number of flowers, yes, and pearls put in the Prime Minister’s hair, and forty doves tossed into the air when the emperor declared them officially wed, but no parade or huge feasts. They were married in the palace. Afterwards, they made two turns around the city so they could shower the people with sensibly abundant gifts. 

A week later, a wedding party, consisting of the two ministers, their old professor, and two of their former colleagues from the war, Jeritza and Shamir, left Enbarr for a honeymoon in the mountains of Hyrm. Caspar, Mercedes, and Lorenz happened to be in Ordelia, and traveled across the mountains to meet them. 

Unknown to most, it was not a grand wedding party, but a journey to hunt down the Agarthan’s hidden city. They were expected to be gone until the end of the summer. Fall, if necessary. 

Edelgard stayed in the city to govern and to keep the Slithers from guessing the wedding party’s true purpose. Dorothea stayed because Edelgard did. Lysithea was undergoing treatments to have her Crests removed and was currently bedridden; Linhardt was making tweaks to her medication on the fly and wouldn’t have fought, anyway. Manuela and Hanneman had volunteered to march, but Byleth told them to stay home. 

Before he left, Hubert handed Dorothea a list of responsibilities he wanted her to assume. She suspected the list was more for her benefit than his: the only additional duties she had were to do black magic tutorials with Edelgard twice a week, check in with the staff of the Imperial household, and take care of some of his personal mail. 

#

So far, her attempts to review black magic were thwarted by Edelgard showing up in a lazing mood or without her books. 

“Are you doing this on purpose?” Dorothea said on their fourth meeting. “You _have_ spare time. I’ve seen you napping.”

“Do you think Hubert truly meant for us to study, or did he want you to have an excuse to not show up at the company until after lunch? The tutorials aren’t for me. I practice magic twice a week on my own. I know where my skills are.” 

“That’s wonderful for you, but I’m out of practice.” It annoyed her to have to spell it out—surely Edelgard wasn’t that oblivious. Dorothea still went out and practiced when she could. Her skills hadn’t deteriorated to the point of uselessness, but she wasn’t the mage she had been during the war, and she knew it. “I don’t want to be your weak link, or the reason why, if someone attacks us in the dead of night, you get hurt trying to protect your useless wife.” 

Edelgard softened then. “I’d be happy to throw myself in front of you,” she said. “You mean the world to me. You could let your magic go entirely, and I’d still love you.” 

“You already have so many things to protect. I want to help you carry your burdens, not add to them.” Dorothea opened the book and set it next to her chalkboard so she could sketch out some diagrams. 

Edelgard, after a moment, joined her. “All right. Why don’t we work together, then.” 

While Dorothea practiced projecting spells into the air, Edelgard reviewed her letters and information from the wedding party with different maps spread out in her lap. Her most enduring obsession these days was planning the deaths of her uncle and his allies—she and Hubert had a literal hidden room full of charts and maps and people’s faces sketched out. In comparison to that, Dorothea could understand how magic tutorials seemed silly and inconsequential. Even so, she was happy having an excuse to spend time with Edelgard during the day. 

#

The next of her duties. As far as she could tell, the staff members were all normal and happy. She greeted them by name, asked after their work, and fielded their questions about when she and the emperor would be married officially, still excited from Hubert and Ferdinand’s wedding. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dorothea said, stealing away some cookies for Lysithea. Linhardt had her on an iron-heavy diet while she recovered. “She’s so devoted to the empire.” 

“Have you tried threatening her other lovers, Ms. Arnault?” the cook roared. He could never be caught talking normally. “Tell them if they’re so special, why does the palace cook only know Ms. Arnault’s breakfast and dinner orders, and none of theirs?” 

Hardly anyone outside their closest friends knew the emperor was a married woman. Gossip about the emperor’s love and sex life was outrageously abundant and commonplace. Dorothea couldn’t tell whether the rumors felt especially abundant because she was married to the subject, or if people had talked about Ionius half as much. Rumor had it that Edelgard was regularly bedding the Prime Minister—the wedding had done nothing to stop the gossip—and her old professor and Fleche von Bergliez and at least two different opera singers and three separate composers. For better or worse, Dorothea’s name almost never came up in this list, except for among her friends at Mittelfrank, who remembered the emperor coming to their afterparties and making out with Dorothea in the back. She suspected Hubert had a hand in that. 

They were not officially wed. Hubert had explained to her, very patiently, that to be the emperor’s consort would effectively end her life outside; worse, it would bring her to the Agarthans’ attention. So, while they had a ceremony and a number of legal documents amended and adjusted, and while Dorothea held a post within the Ministry of Arts and Culture, which existed mostly to provide her with an income should things go monstrously wrong, it was technically not official. It was not such a bitter pill to swallow. She had known being with Edelgard would be complicated from the beginning. 

At least nobles bothered her less. Now, instead of nobles flirting with her in hopes of possessing her, they came to her vying for access to the emperor and the inner circle. Less personally dangerous to her, but unpleasant in new ways. Romantic suitors she could ridicule with impunity, and even enjoyed it, now that they had no use in her life, but scorning the youngest son of the Minister of Agriculture would make Ferdinand’s work more difficult. 

In any case, the staff seemed happy to be there and talk to her. She discovered a whole network of romantic entanglements—at some point, the entanglements reached a point where she kept a chart in the back of her notebook—and before she knew it, they were asking her for small favors: chasing down special Dagdan herbs, getting the groundskeeper to fix a fence, acquiring six cords of some special Ordelian wood that was especially good for smoking meat. In exchange, she got information. To her surprise, everyone she talked to missed Hubert. They asked what she had heard of Lords Vestra and Aegir, and she said they were having a fine time riding in the mountains. She learned that Hubert liked his steak with a mix of wine and horseradish—confusing and not necessary for her to know, but she’d find a use for the information someday.

#

Her final task for Hubert was to take up some of his correspondence. Some was House Vestra business he handed off to her instead of giving to his adjutant or secretaries; others involved managing the Varley and Hevring estates on behalf of their friends; yet another side involved arranging favors in exchange for necessary work. Aside from bursts of occasional interest, when she had to think of some way to disguise a payment or work out some clever way of verifying work done or negotiate rewards, this was the driest work he had given her. She hoped he’d come back soon. 

#

There was, however, one good thing about their friends’ absences. Over the years, Edelgard and Hubert’s private briefings had shifted from night to afternoons to mornings, then crept to earlier and earlier hours. Dorothea was used to waking up to Edelgard and Hubert already up and drinking their tea and coffee and going over work at Edelgard’s desk or at the side table. Hubert’s deputy preferred to not wake the emperor and her wife from their sleep, so Edelgard’s days started later. In other words, a perfect opportunity for morning sex. 

“What do you think?” Dorothea said, while they working together on the couches after dark. “How would you like to wake up with me going down on you?” 

“Coming that early makes me tired,” Edelgard said thoughtfully. “I’d have to go back to sleep afterwards. Without Hubert, I’m too indolent.” 

It was true, to an extent. Without Hubert, Edelgard was less mindful with her time and energy—wonderful when Dorothea could take advantage of her lapses, but it also meant that, without someone she trusted announcing tasks or meals or his version of common sense, Edelgard could spend all night checking tax tables or moving wooden pieces around various maps and muttering things under her breath. 

“What if you didn’t come? What then?” Dorothea said. She set her papers aside and put her hand on the back of Edelgard’s neck. 

“Then I’ll be very angry during my morning meetings.” Dorothea worked on undoing her hair. There was so much of it again—she cut it to her shoulders last year, in a bid to relieve herself of the literal headaches, and now it was long again. When the left side was loose enough, she tugged and sent pins flying everywhere. “You—you’re going to regret that when it’s stabbing your foot later! What’s put this on your mind?” 

“We’ve had a lot of free time in the mornings lately, haven’t we? It seems a shame to spend all that time sleeping.” 

“I see.” She put a toothy kiss on Dorothea’s neck, one that made Dorothea offer more and more of her neck and skin to her teeth, then turned her face aside. “Then we should wait until morning. You’re always energized after a few rounds, are you not? Back to work with us.” 

“No!” She pulled off Edelgard’s gloves and slipped their rings and wedding bands into the left glove and set it aside. She gave Edelgard’s hair more tugs, pulling until it came down entirely. “You know what? Our nights have been uninterrupted, too.” 

Edelgard perked up right away. She lifted Dorothea into her lap, one of those casual shows of strength that always made Dorothea’s cunt squeeze against itself. Dorothea yanked her skirts up and out of the way and put Edelgard’s hands on her ass. She squeezed tight and made a pleased, excited noise when Dorothea pushed back against her hands. She leaned back against the couch, looking up at Dorothea—truthfully, her eyes were very obviously on Dorothea’s cleavage—before turning her attention back to Dorothea’s face. “What can I give you?” she said. 

As much as she would’ve liked to spread Edelgard open and fuck her until she cried, she suspected Edelgard would be too restless to really enjoy it. With so many plans still in motion and their friends gone, she’d be happier taking control, or at least, feeling like she was. “Have your way with me. I’ll take care of you next time.” 

“I’d like that. Good. I’ll treat you well, dearest.” Her kisses deepened swiftly; she sucked on Dorothea’s tongue, licked the inside of her lips, kept kissing her until Dorothea could barely catch her breath. She kissed and bit her way down her neck, down to her chest, and used her teeth to pull down the front of her dress. 

“Oh, that’s what you want, is it?” Dorothea said. “You stare at them when you’re having trouble drafting letters. How do these help?” 

“They promote healthy thinking,” she said. “I’d classify them as luxury goods in the tariff code. And as the emperor, I’m happy to collect.”

“I’ll help you collect, all right.” She lifted herself up enough to get her hands on the back of Edelgard’s head and shoved her face into her breasts. Edelgard yelped at first, then moaned against her. She nipped at Dorothea’s skin, then put down harder, more commanding bites, sucking on them so she’d leave marks. 

Good, but Dorothea wanted more; by the time Edelgard took her nipple between her teeth, she was rocking against Edelgard’s clothed thigh, her cunt seizing uselessly on itself. She moved herself away to ask Edelgard to get a harness and a strap, or tried; Edelgard tightened her grip on her and pulled her back. She moved away again, this time deliberately; Edelgard’s mouth followed Dorothea’s breasts until Dorothea used one hand to yank Edelgard’s hair hard enough to force her head back and covered her mouth with her other hand. 

“As lovely as this is, I want more _now_. You can smother yourself to death later,” she said. Edelgard licked at her palm delicately, then more aggressively, using the side of her tongue and the broad flat—Dorothea turned her hand so the heel was on Edelgard’s chin and pushed her head all the way back. She rubbed her bitten breasts against Edelgard’s. Bit her lip as Edelgard moaned into her hand. 

Edelgard’s fingers filled her up easily. Dorothea let go of her head and rubbed Edelgard’s throat with her palm, urging her on. Edelgard’s first few thrusts were desperate and rough; then her mouth fell back on Dorothea’s chest, and she moved her hand so her palm bore down on Dorothea’s clit. Wave after wave of sparks jumped into her navel and thighs and breasts. 

“A little more,” she said between gasps. She scratched her way from Edelgard’s neck to the back of her shoulders, then the space underneath her shoulder blades, like she was trying to pry her apart. She liked this type of intimacy, which made being loved feel easy. “I’m so close. Edie, show me how much you love me. I want you to go hard and fast, Edie, fuck, I’m yours, I’m…” 

“You’re mine. I know,” Edelgard said. She came up to kiss Dorothea on the mouth, one of her sweet, soft kisses. “Into my arms. Give me more, Dorothea, and I’ll give you what you want.” She bounced Dorothea on her fingers a few times, then picked her up and set her down on her back against the couch. Edelgard tipped her backwards, put two pillows under her hips, and forced her knees back. She looked so determined sitting between Dorothea’s legs, like Dorothea’s pleasure was something she could win and claim for her own. “Oh, you’re beautiful. I could sit and look for hours. Until dawn, and then even longer.” 

Was she going to make Dorothea beg? Dorothea’s legs jerked uselessly against Edelgard’s shoulder and arm. Thankfully, Edelgard’s fingers were inside her right away: two first to test the angle and to work her back up again, then four stretching her out. Edelgard’s hand moved in smooth, powerful thrusts, hard enough that Dorothea had to put her hand against the couch arm to keep her head from bumping against it. Before long, Dorothea was gasping and shaking. Edelgard smiled down at her. She paused to dip the fingers of her other hand in the wetness coming out of Dorothea’s cunt, then rubbed her clit, fast and hard. Dorothea’s back arched until her shoulders and head were the only thing touching the couch. 

“Edie, get on me, I want to feel you here,” she said. She grabbed Edelgard’s hair and pulled her forward until Dorothea’s cheek rested on the top of Edelgard’s head and the linen of Edelgard’s dress rubbed deliciously against her bare skin. Edelgard’s fingers still moved inside her, drawing out those ugly noises that came when Dorothea wasn’t thinking about how she should sound. It was something of a game for Edelgard to see how many of those sounds she could force out of her. 

Slowly, the pleasure became more diffuse. Dorothea’s breath came back and she managed to be quiet again. 

“You were wonderful. Beautiful. I love making you come like that,” Edelgard said, putting kisses along Dorothea’s cheeks and mouth. Her hands ran over her Dorothea’s chest and stomach. “How are you?” 

“Lovely, thanks to you.” Dorothea looked down at her breasts and sighed. “Edie, you’re going to give the costumer a heart attack.” 

“If you really cared about that, you’d heal yourself before going in. Undress me,” she said and caught Dorothea’s mouth. She didn’t stop kissing her as Dorothea worked. It was a deep pink dress Dorothea had taken apart before, one of her unarmored evening pieces. Easy to shed, with a buttoned panel down the front, some ties and stays, easy and familiar to undo. Underneath, a long shift to cover her body and white tights, wet at the crotch—ruined now—below. Every time Dorothea opened her eyes to help her fingers deal with a stubborn button, she caught a glimpse of Edelgard’s face. Tense, she noted, with her eyes half-open. Was she thinking of work already? Dorothea bit down on Edelgard’s lower lip and left long scratches on her exposed stomach. 

“Get back here,” she said. “You’re not tired of me already, I hope.” 

“I’m here. Don’t stop.” She took Dorothea’s breast in her hand—if only she was always this easy to steer back—and squeezed. 

When everything was ready, Edelgard spread her dress out on the floor and motioned for Dorothea to kneel on the fine, soft linen. Dorothea dropped down without a fight and moved to kiss her thighs, close to her wet pussy. Edelgard put a hand on her head. Not yet. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Edelgard said. 

“I’m glad _you’re_ here,” Dorothea said. She bent down lower to kiss Edelgard’s feet and wrapped her hands around Edelgard’s calves. She felt Edelgard lean into her touch and widen her stance. “I thought you’d go marching,” she said between kisses. “Not that I would’ve asked you to stay, if you really wanted to go, but I’m happy you did. Am I going too slow?” 

“No. You’re keeping a good pace. Keep going.”

That wasn’t fair, she almost said. Complaining would’ve likely inspired Edelgard to torture her longer. She kissed harder and longer, letting her lips drag across Edelgard’s skin.

Mid-thigh now. She rubbed the insides of Edelgard’s thighs, spreading them further, so she could kiss around them. She was in familiar territory, and they were both getting excited. “It would’ve ruined the surprise attack if you had gone with them, anyway. All three of you out of the city at the same time? This is better. I have you all to myself.” Edelgard’s hands grabbed the top of her head, urging her higher. “We can do this every morning and night, if you’d like. Remember Fhirdiad? Back when we were just engaged?” 

“I remember.” She pushed Dorothea’s hair away from her face and cheeks. Waves went through Dorothea’s scalp and spine. “You’re so beautiful when you’re happy. I had to take you in every room in that ugly castle to improve it. How much do you need me?” 

“More than my hands. More than my legs. More than my voice.” She fell down to kiss the insides of Edelgard’s ankles, partly out of reverence, but mainly because she knew Edelgard was close enough that she’d find the prospect of waiting for Dorothea to make her way back up to a height where she could be yanked into place unbearable. 

“Let me sit down,” Edelgard said. There was a chair to her left, and she took it straight away. Dorothea crawled over on her hands and knees. Edelgard laced her fingers on the back of Dorothea’s head and pulled her in. “Do as you’d like, but don’t make me wait.” 

“Of course, darling.” She managed to lay five long, deep kisses, the first right over her clit, and the rest in a line down to her entrance so she could swirl her tongue in it. She could have stayed there for a long while. Edelgard pulled her off. 

“Not your tongue. I want you to give me your thumb.” Dorothea latched her mouth around her clit and sucked the flesh as far into her mouth as she could. Edelgard’s head fell back; her hips lifted up into Dorothea’s hands. Then she squeezed Dorothea’s nose. “What did I say?” 

Apparently ‘do as you’d like’ now meant ‘do as I tell you.’ Dorothea pushed her thumb into her cunt, moving it slowly around. Above her, Edelgard’s eyes were shut. She had one hand at the base of Dorothea’s head, holding her close as Dorothea rubbed her knuckles from her slit down to her asshole, starting light and then grinding against them. Dorothea would’ve loved to get in deeper so she could have her pick of cunt or ass later—even if the night didn’t end up that way, the idea of slicking up a dildo and making Edelgard choose where she wanted to get fucked make Dorothea suck harder—but she had Edelgard where she wanted. She reached up to pinch Edelgard’s nipple between her fingers. Edelgard’s responding moan finished high in her throat. She squeezed harder, and Edelgard became a soft, spasming thing in her hands and mouth. 

It was easy, if breathless, work to keep licking and sucking and pressing her hand in and around, until Edelgard came in a rush against her mouth and around her fingers. Wetness poured over her chin and onto the fabric cushion. Dorothea pulled away briefly to admire the effects she had. Edelgard’s eyes were shut, her face and chest red, and her thighs trembling as though someone had delivered shock after shock to her. 

“Don’t stop,” Edelgard said, stretching her spine out. “Please, a little longer.” 

“You get sweet when you beg. I like that.” Dorothea shifted her legs. Her knees were beyond aching at this point. Still, she thought, it’d be a shame to stop now. She put a hand between her own legs so she could bring herself off at the same time. “Beg a little more for me, and I’ll let you fuck my mouth for as long as you want.” 

Afterwards, Edelgard brought her work to bed and wrote letters. She passed a few over to Dorothea to ask for her opinion on how to handle a matter or what she knew of a certain noble. 

“I do know him,” Dorothea said. “He comes to the opera twice a year and bullies his way to the afterparty, no matter who’s hosting. He doesn’t do anything useful. You should get rid of him.” 

“All nobles, by definition, pointless and taking advantage of the system,” Edelgard said, tapping her quill against the page and leaving a blot of ink. She scowled at it. “I need you to tell me if they’re useful to me, not if I’d find them worthy.” 

“I wish you’d just get rid of them all,” Dorothea said. “That can be your fifth anniversary gift to me. You like your big gestures.” 

“Hmm. It’s worth a try, then.” 

She used to think marriage would be some tolerable torture she’d put up with in exchange for avoiding her worst nightmares. A pleasant duty, at best. Even though it wasn’t official, she felt married, in the important ways, and it made her say all kinds of maddening, mind-numbing things. Everyone at Mittelfrank rolled their eyes at her, yet she couldn’t stop going on about it being a partnership, and there being work, so much work, and of course it was worth it, with the right person—what a bore she could be. In her happiest moments, she looked into Edelgard’s face and clutched her ring and thought, Look at my wife! I did it. It’s real: happiness beyond reason. 

#

Summer went on. Edelgard and the Minister of Religion, formerly at loggerheads, went on a fishing trip and were suddenly amicable and cheerful with one another. A pain for Dorothea: she still thought the minister was an ass. Bernadetta came back to Enbarr for the summer. With Hubert gone, Dorothea was charged with collecting information and prying out details of her expeditions, which she extracted over tea and visits and a spot of apartment-hunting, too. Bernadetta was ready to get her own place in Enbarr, for good, this time, though she still planned on traveling often. 

For Edelgard’s birthday, Edelgard spent most of her day out in the city making speeches. As was tradition, there was a dance held in the palace for prominent nobles and commoners alike; Dorothea wished she could spend more time with Edelgard, but these days, dances and feasts were work events. Her role here was to rally the other commoners’ spirits, push them to make connections, and talk with nobles to suss out their positions on varying issues. If she were actually Edelgard’s consort, then she’d be able to stay at Edelgard’s side through the whole event. She looked lonely up there without Hubert and Ferdinand flanking her, and the nobles, ever attentive to weakness, spent the night flattering her and trying to curry favor, two of her least favorite modes of interaction. 

When it was all over, they retreated to their bedchambers. 

“What did you get me?” Edelgard said once they were ready for bed. “I ask every year for a puppy, you know.” 

“You already have a hunting hound! We’ll talk about this later,” Dorothea said, exasperated, though it was getting clear to her that it was going to happen eventually, with or without her participation. She pushed her wrapped gift over. “Here. I made you a game. It’s called ‘Backstabs Backstage.’ It even comes with a rulebook, since you like those so much. Open it up and look at the pieces Bern made for you.” 

Edelgard obediently opened the package and, after reading the booklet and admiring the hand-painted pieces, tried to rope Dorothea into a game; but it was a game meant for at least four, so they put it away in favor of more suitable two-person activities. 

#

Early one morning, near Saint Cethleann’s Day—renamed People’s Day, but no one called it that yet—she woke to Edelgard sitting up in bed. A messenger was bowing obsequiously to her, her eyes averted and obviously nervous. When she looked up and saw Dorothea, the messenger turned bright red and stared at the floor. 

“It’s a letter from Arundel,” Edelgard said, filling in the blanks for Dorothea, who was still trying to catch up. “You’re dismissed.”

The messenger bowed again, deeper than etiquette demanded, and hurried out of the chambers. 

Edelgard opened the letter. Then she handed it off to Dorothea and got out of bed and went to her desk. 

Arundel’s letter was a long one, consisting of some nine pages, transcribed by his secretary, detailing the latest troubles with the reconstruction of Arianrhod. He was particularly upset about his own estate and lands, currently ‘under attack’ by tax collectors and the Ministry of Religion. Arundel’s power came from his nobility, his wealth, and closeness to the emperor. The more damage they did to those, the more they weakened him.

For some time now, they had been tightening the noose around Arundel. Edelgard had given him the ruined city of Arianrhod to rebuild, knowing he and the Agarthans would use it to start building their kingdom yet again. They had spent the past two years setting increasingly petty bureaucratic traps for Arundel, delaying his access to money, workers, and materials. Some had been truly minor issues, but some required him to send men to Enbarr to grovel and beg. Now they had finally irritated him enough to bring him to Enbarr himself. Hubert had spies, Ferdinand had reports, Lysithea had expense sheets. Of all the ways Edelgard could have taken him down, she would get him on unauthorized use of treasury funds and abuse of imperial resources.

At the city gates, he’d be escorted to the palace, and then put in the dungeons. The Council would be called for a trial. Even with Ferdinand and Hubert away, she had enough of the council ministers on her side to swing the trial her way. It’d be another devastating blow for Shambhala. 

Edelgard left the room to hand off the letters notifying her council of the upcoming trial. When she came back, she went to her dressing room instead of going to bed. 

“Edie, he’s not going to show up at the palace right now,” Dorothea said. “Come back to bed. I miss you.” When Edelgard ignored her, she said, louder this time, “Are you going to change into your armor and sit at your desk, holding onto your axe, until it’s time to eat?” 

Edelgard stepped out of her dressing room, already changed into her training clothes. Her hands were pulling her hair up into a bun. “I have much to do and many preparations to make,” she said. “If you want to help, then join me. Otherwise, feel free to go back to bed.”

“Fine. I’ll join you.” Edelgard looked momentarily taken aback. Dorothea smiled as she got out of bed. “If you feel guilty for making your wife get out of bed at the break of dawn, you could always come back to bed.” 

“I’m being beastly, I know,” she said. “Swords or magic?” 

“We might as well do magic, since you’re always running away from it.” 

She went to the dressing room and changed into her own training clothes: a plain, undyed shirt and skirt, and a mage’s robes to go over them. 

They went to the outdoor magical training grounds together, all the way at the end of the palace. The grounds were protected by enchanted stone walls and divided into sections. Members of the imperial guard trained far in the back: a decent-sized group of them, to Dorothea’s surprise. Edelgard got caught up in conversation with the guards, and so it was up to Dorothea to arrange the dummies and the grounds to her liking. 

“Did you have some plan for training in mind?” Edelgard said once she returned. “I usually train with a different arrangement.” 

“Oh, that’s right.” She had asked the dummies to be set far away, since needed to work on her long-range attacks. Edelgard preferred to use magic up close, face-to-face. It’d be a shame to call the groundsmen work hard when it had been her own lack of thought that got her in this situation. “Why don’t we make it a distance and accuracy test? Unless all Byleth ever asked you to do were power drills.”

“Not exclusively. I’ve done my share of accuracy and distance work,” Edelgard said. 

Dorothea had gotten back in the habit of writing her training results. She flipped the book open to show Edelgard her latest results. She drew another column. “I’ll just add your name here. We don’t share any black magic spells on our list, do we? That’ll make things easier for you.” 

“Why do you say that?” 

“I won’t be able to make any direct comparisons, so you can win on technicalities,” Dorothea said, blinking with false surprise. She put a hand to her mouth and laughed, as though she had scandalized herself. “Isn’t that what you do with the law these days?” 

They wound up drawing a small audience as the training went on. She finished the first drill set with ease, but her accuracy with the advanced spells outside the Thunder element tree were off today. She didn’t know why. No wind to trouble her Sagittae, and she had the tables for Agnea’s Arrow memorized at this point, so her timing should have been spot on. Her performance wouldn’t have been scorned on the battlefield. Would it be good enough for Arundel if he put up a fight? She didn’t know. Either way, she didn’t care for people to watch her. 

Although she was mostly focused on herself, she made sure to cheer Edelgard on as she busted out the heavier, more complex dark magic. The first few casts were impressive, but the next missed their target, or flickered out of existence before they could apply real damage. Edelgard shook her hands out, rubbed her thigh as though it ached. It felt wrong, in a way she couldn’t figure out, and it was distracting her from her own work. An uncomfortable pressure built up in her stomach. Edelgard looked glassy-eyed and redder in the face than usual. 

Dorothea grabbed Edelgard’s arm. It was hot, burning through the fabric of her sleeves. She patted her arm down, half-expecting to find that Edelgard had set herself on fire like an amateur. She had to be running a terrible fever. 

“You have a meeting with that General von Arnault in an hour, Your Majesty,” Dorothea said. “Should we wash you off?” 

“Yes, let’s,” Edelgard said. She put her arm through Dorothea’s. “Thank you.” 

Once they were out of the training grounds, Edelgard put more weight against her arm and steered them to a doorway Dorothea had only noticed, in the back of her mind, as a servant’s passage. Edelgard leaned against the wall, then slid down to the floor. She looked awful—worse than that, she looked disoriented and limp, like she did when she woke up from a night terror. 

“Oh—no, no, you poor thing,” Dorothea said. “Edie, why did you let me goad you like that if you’re ill?” 

“It’s not a fever. There’s no point in hiding it anymore,” she said. She wiped her sweat onto her shoulder.

Dorothea looped her arm around her shoulder, knowing that Edelgard would prefer to look like she was on the floor being felt up by a pretty woman instead of weak. “This is my fault,” she said. She put the back of her hand against Edelgard’s forehead. “I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard. Then again, you could have just admitted defeat like a normal person.” 

“I’m going to be as direct about this as possible,” Edelgard said. She removed Dorothea’s hand from her forehead. “The Crest of Flames is causing my body to fail. The symptoms started presenting themselves two months ago. I used to think Lysithea was foolish for pushing herself to the point where she fainted everywhere, but now I see how easy it is for things to get away from you. It’s nothing to be too concerned about for the time being, but I expect the news will be shocking to you at first.” She watched Dorothea carefully, then said, “You’re getting upset.”

“Edie, let’s not fight about this while you’re on the floor.” 

“We might as well fight about it now,” she said. “Or else you’ll overthink it and a week from now, you’ll be too stressed to sleep.” 

Dorothea ignored her words in favor of helping her back to her feet. She looked steadier but still pale and clammy; the smile she flashed Dorothea did nothing to reassure her. Two months. Since before Hubert and Ferdinand’s wedding. They headed back to their bedchambers. 

Edelgard had told her the likely effects of her second Crest on her lifespan two years or so into their relationship—not quite. Dorothea had pieced it together after listening to her conversations with Lysithea, then, for a year, refused to think about it. Edelgard made it easy to forget the truth: her powerful limbs, the steadiness of her mind, her drive to accomplish. And there was good news. There was a treatment, a cure… 

“Sometimes I think you wish you were that giant chunk of metal you lug around instead of a person, but you aren’t. No one can protect you if you don’t tell them when you’re sick or hurt.” She stole a look at Edelgard as they walked through the halls. Servants were rushing past them, hurrying to get everything in place. Few of them greeted Dorothea when she was in Edelgard’s company. She was grateful for it; she wasn’t in the mood to change her focus. It felt like someone was hitting her over and over again with a blunt training axe. “Tell me at least Hubie knows.” 

“I’ll tell him when he comes back. Let’s stop here for a moment.” One of the many palace cats, a handsome sable tom with an enormous face, was loafing in a sunbeam on a windowsill. The window faced a flower garden, full of stingingly bright blossoms. Edelgard offered her hand to the cat and, when the cat rubbed its face against her hand, closing its eyes like they were old friends, she eagerly put both hands on its back and gave him a rough, but apparently appreciated, pet down. “Look at you! Thank you for your hard work, Sir Mouser. Hmm. Yes.” 

She watched Edelgard go back to petting the cat’s head, scratching its cheeks and chin and behind its short, stubby ears. She thought the extra time would calm her down. Instead, it only gave her more time to dig herself further into her own agitation. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” 

“We have more important tasks at hand,” she said evenly. “I wish you’d calm down. Compared to Lysithea, I’m lucky. I expect my own recovery will be smoother when the time comes.” 

“You wish I’d calm… you’re infuriating,” she said. “Saying you can see that I’m upset doesn’t do anything to make me feel better when you can’t get through a moderately strenuous training exercise without fainting. Get your head out of your ass.” 

Edelgard turned her head back to glare, but said nothing else. Wonderful. They were going to have that fight Edelgard was spoiling for after all. 

They walked the rest of the way to the emperor’s room without stopping to talk to anyone or pet any more cats. Edelgard’s strength was fully restored by then: back in their rooms, she stripped out of her training clothes straight away and headed to the wash room. Dorothea let her go first so she could sit on Hubert’s black chaise. Then she remembered Hubert had, technically, an order allowing Dorothea to take control of his ministry, should he be gone for longer than twenty days. She could invoke that now to… 

And there she stopped that line of thought. To do what? Drug Edelgard and haul her unconscious body to Linhardt’s institute and tie her to a chair while those morbid bags of red medicine dripped into her veins? Edelgard would never forgive her. She liked that Edelgard was strong willed, but she needed Edelgard to, for once, just once, not fight her on this. 

By the time Edelgard came out to ask Dorothea if she was coming to the wash room to clean up or not, Dorothea was sitting on the couch with her fist against her cheek and tears silently falling down her face. It was a very picturesque way of crying, especially with the pale sunlight coming in through the curtains and her ponytail fanning out on her chest and the rich, black velvet of the chaise—she was amazed it could happen in a moment of genuine sadness. It felt disgustingly manipulative to be sad this way, like she was acting it instead of feeling it so acutely that she felt poisoned. 

Edelgard rushed to her side. Dorothea instantly despised both of them. Was she only getting attention because she looked pretty? Was it that Edelgard was so emotionally thickheaded that it took literal tears to move her? Then she was only grateful she wouldn’t be abandoned to her misery. 

“Dorothea, please,” Edelgard said. “What can I… I’m sorry, I…” Her hand clapped against Dorothea’s shoulder, like she was reassuring a soldier, then came down to take her hand, holding it delicately. 

“You don’t think about me or how I’d feel at all. You do whatever you want how you want it, and I’m the one who has to live with the consequences. And that’s fine on most days, but it’s hideous that you’re making me watch…” A disgusting, wet sludge of emotion threatened to spill out of her mouth, breaking her veneer of calm resignation and exposing the wound below. She took the handkerchief Edelgard offered and tried to smash the feelings back down. She had watched her mother die over the course of week after miserable week. It wasn’t the same, it didn’t feel the same, and still, it was where her mind went. “I should have known you wouldn’t have stayed in Enbarr unless you physically couldn’t.” 

“That’s not fair. I stayed because our plan demanded it,” she said. She was holding tight onto Dorothea at this point, and her eyes avidly bright, like she could knock out Dorothea’s concerns with words alone. “It’ll pass before you know it. By the time I abdicate, you’ll forget you ever had to worry about this.”

“Why can’t you let me be sad for even fifteen minutes before telling me to get over it? You don’t get to bring me awful news and then not let me feel it. It’s like being in love with—” She couldn’t think of anything that adequately conveyed what she was thinking. ‘A statue’ or ‘a cave painting’ were the ones that came to mind. They both seemed too silly for the moment, and every other thing she could think of too hurtful. She let it go. This wasn’t what they were fighting about. 

“What is it like?” Edelgard said when it became clear Dorothea wasn’t going to finish her sentence. “You can say anything to me, Dorothea, as long as you’re honest. I know I’m failing you now, but I’d like you to talk to me so I know how.”

She didn’t want to talk at first. She wanted to sit in silence and let it hurt both of them for a while longer. Being silent and furious felt satisfying for the first hour or so, but she always regretted it afterwards. It had taken them so long to be direct with their feelings face-to-face. She couldn’t take it for granted, not yet. 

”Stop hovering and sit down,” Dorothea said. Edelgard did, sitting close enough that Dorothea could touch her if she wanted. Dorothea leaned in close, putting herself against Edelgard’s solid side. They were still safe, Dorothea reminded herself. This wouldn’t doom them. “It’s not—I know Lysithea’s well now, and that you’ll be fine. It’s horrible, but that’s not what bothers me. I feel like you don’t trust me to take even a little of your burdens. Didn’t you feel a little guilty, hiding your sickness from me for two months?” 

“It’s easier to not think about something when I’m hiding it. And I’ve kept more damaging secrets.” 

“I see. So you’re just thoughtless.” Edelgard looked coolly at her, but said nothing. “Do you really never think—do you not think about me dying? Or even dying yourself? At all?” 

Edelgard shifted in the couch, looking supremely uncomfortable. “I prefer to spend my time fretting about what I can accomplish with my run in life and not on things I can’t control.”

“Excuse me for being mortal!” she muttered. 

Breakfast came. She felt much too aware of how much Edelgard ate, whether it looked like she had an appetite. It made it hard for her to enjoy her food or even her sweet tea; she finished her meal only after Edelgard bumped her foot into her shin under the table. 

Edelgard’s meetings started soon, but she didn’t move to change. She took the tray to the door, passed it off to the servants, and then came back to sit with Dorothea. She was being patient and kind, and it was maddening. It made her feel like Edelgard had been right to keep this from her. Here she was, losing her head, while Edelgard stiffly went about her morning… Tears blurred her vision. She wiped them away. It was foolishness to think this way. She had married Edelgard knowing how—for lack of better words—goal-directed she was. She had just thought the worst of it would be feeling neglected or insignificant. 

“If you’re too scared to write to Hubie, fine. I’ll do it,” Dorothea said. “The second Arundel’s dead, I want you to start treatment. You’ll do at least that much, won’t you?” 

“My plan was to wait until—” 

“Byleth returned with the wedding party? Why? No one needs you to show up to a skirmish so you can faint off your horse. When you hide things from me, it makes me—I feel like I’m losing my mind. I think I hate you a little.” She was bent over, elbows on her knees and ankles crossed, with her face in her hand. Saying it out loud was a relief, even if it was horrible. She was mad in a way she hadn’t realized she could be mad. Deeply, intensely furious and carved out by it. As much as she wanted to go back to bed and wait for this problem to disappear, she couldn’t. She had to keep going.

“Do you know why I stayed in Enbarr?” Edelgard said after a moment. Dorothea couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t faintly rude. “I’m being self-indulgent. I want revenge. It’s a useless desire, but I want to put Arundel down myself. He’s had his foot on my neck for all these years—I’d love to watch him realize I won’t be his puppet any longer. The strategic benefits to splitting the Slithers’ leadership are a bonus.” Her voice was calm, but her eyes had a cold, contemptuous light in them, one Dorothea had never seen before. She hadn’t even looked that way when they were killing Seiros. “And I thought it’d be monstrous of me to ask you to march again. You would’ve hated yourself whether you went or stayed. I didn’t want you to make that choice.” 

“Don’t try to make this about me,” Dorothea said. 

“How could I? I’m selfish and think only of myself,” she said sharply. “I don’t think about being ill at all. I’ve seen its progression in Lysithea and my siblings, and it doesn’t scare me. I should have just said I got malaria from going to visit father and Griselda last week. What difference does it make?”

She had her wrist encircled in her hand, holding onto it tight and rubbing at something under her sleeves. It was a movement Dorothea had only seen her do when she was dreaming of captivity. Even if Edelgard didn’t recognize it, Dorothea did. Dorothea put her fingers on Edelgard’s hand. She slipped her fingers into the space between Edelgard’s thumb and index finger and pried up until her grip broke. Edelgard fought it, even though she couldn’t possibly want to. The grip was hard enough that her hand had to be red under the glove. 

“Relax,” she said. She traced the manacle scars under the sleeve. She had Edelgard’s hand flat in hers now. “I’m mad because I want everything you promised me. Our life now, the life after this, all of it. I’m not ready for this to be over.” 

“I think of you and your feelings all the time,” Edelgard said, looking away from their joined hands and at the mage cloak draped over the couch behind Dorothea's back. “Even if you don’t believe me, I do.”


	11. eyeless music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enbarr's hosting a bad father figures convention! No Gilberts allowed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a sex scene with breathplay (with a tap out) and more butt stuff (plugs, fingering).

Mid-morning, after Edelgard was up and running about, Dorothea checked her letters before heading to Mittelfrank. Factual reports from Byleth; a chatty seven-pager from Ferdinand; a few sentences from Mercedes, nothing more; and Hubert’s brief letter, which thanked her for her discovery and demanded that she keep watch over Edelgard’s body and moods. He agreed that Edelgard should start treatment right away, though urged her to see whether Edelgard had any requests on how the treatments should be carried out. A sampling of questions Dorothea should ask: By the sea or in the country? How far out the city? Should she take Manuela or Linhardt? Would they alternate? He asked for her to report the answers in her next letter. 

They found the city and were now waiting for more battalions to arrive so they could launch a full attack. Lorenz had, somehow, managed to persuade Leonie and her band of mercenaries to join them. Should everything go well, they would be back before summer’s end. 

#

The company had asked her to instruct some of the new members in musical performance. She had held a handful of seminars in magic back in the war, and led plenty of drills and practice exercises, and so on, but it was her first time teaching performance; she had been the baby of the company, even when she was a star. She chose dark green dress that covered most of her back. The neckline was respectable, modestly accentuating her breasts, and her arms were bare. The necklace she wore had been a gift from Edelgard: two silver bands with a double-headed eagle glaring with ruby eyes. Half the reason she wore it was so Edelgard would catch her putting it on. Edelgard had stopped, admired her, kissed her carefully to avoid smudging their lipsticks, then went on her way. 

After the tutorial, she stayed behind to talk with the older company members. They teased her for running it like a military seminar, then peered at her necklace. 

“Big!” they said. “Kind of ugly—but beautiful at the same time?” 

After the tutorial was rehearsal for the performers. The first show of the season was mid-way through production, and the second show, a story about Emperor Ionius I, was being put together now. Dorothea wasn’t performing in either show, not with Arundel and the Slithers taking up so much of her attention, but she did help the librettist, who was an old friend. He was milking her access to the palace and historical archives for facts and suitably dramatic details. 

During a break, they had wine and fought each other for the last bits of bread and the nice ham. Her fingers were still covered in grease when the director came by. Some pushy man was looking for her. She was free to leave through the back if she needed to.

“Did he give a name?” Dorothea said. There was a handful of pushy men she was juggling right now to grease some wheels for Ferdinand. 

“That Lord Gereon Nadaud who used to show up around here. He’s more of a patron of the Sebire company these days. Stopped coming around once Manuela tore him a new one.” 

Nadaud. A fairly common name, but a name she found especially unpleasant. She had probably met five or six Nadauds, some lords, some not, over the years. Dorothea checked the clock. She should head back to the palace now, anyway. Arundel was close to the city, and she wanted to be there in case Edelgard asked for her. 

She had an apartment in the city near the opera house, which Hubert asked her to take to make it easier to park the carriage. She almost never stayed there unless the opera was in season and she had to stay late for rehearsals or parties. She sent a messenger out to the apartment to let the driver know she wanted to head back, bade her friends goodbye, and went to the back entrance, careful to stay behind the statues in case Nadaud decided to come around. The carriage arrived. 

She was sitting there with a score in her hands when the carriage came around the side, and she saw Nadaud’s face. His hair was grayer and face thinned by age, but she knew him. She hadn’t been able to see it when she was sixteen, but even from a distance, she could see that they were tied by blood: somehow, she had the way he stood there with his hands folded in front of his stomach, and the curls in his dark gray hair were hers, too. 

She thought about driving off. Instead, she got out of the carriage and went to him. 

He had a bad leg, she noticed. It pleased her to see him grip the railing and hobble down to meet her. His handsomeness reminded her of her own face: the slope of their chins, the slant of their nostrils, the shape of his hands. 

“A lovely carriage,” he said, nodding his head in a way that indicated approval. Something about his words felt snide. “One of the Prime Minister’s, isn’t it? Haven’t you done well, General Arnault!” 

“What do you want?” she said. 

“To—blast.” He licked his lips. Most men these days took after Ferdinand and opted to be clean-shaven. He still kept a thin moustache above his lip. She wanted to rip it off. “I know I’ve offended you during the war, General, with my frankly unconscionable…” Dorothea tried to listen, but the more he went on, talking about how his logging business in Boramas had been troubled lately by the Minister of the Treasury seizing his shipments on order of the Ministry of the Imperial Household—which had taken quite a lot of work for him to find out!—and how he had heard, from a friend, that the opera singer and general, Dorothea Arnault, the one he used to talk about so often, was spotted at the emperor’s birthday party in the palace, clearly one of the emperor’s commoner friends (he said so in a tone that might as well have meant ‘pets’), the more she suspected he had no idea who she was, on any level. 

“You say it’s an apology, but I hear nothing that you’ve apologized for,” Dorothea said. “All I hear is that you’ve been inconvenienced by some paperwork.” 

“Regardless of how you obtained your rank in the army, you’ve certainly proven yourself worthy. You can tell the Minister of the Imperial Household that I only speak your praises these days. It’s been many years, General Arnault, and high time we put this behind us.” 

He waited, patiently, for her to say something—probably waiting, she thought, for her to be so thankful that he had apologized that she’d say she’d run over to some low-level bureaucrat, suck him off, and then beg him to stop ruining this nice man’s business. Infuriating. 

“I’m not the one who asked for Marquis Vestra to take action against you,” Dorothea said. “It puzzles me that you’d think I had anything to do with this. I don’t think of you at all.” 

“Everyone knows you’re the Marquis’ lover. Even if he’s taken a husband, I expect soon enough, he’ll be adopting some dark-haired ghoul of a baby—” 

“Oh, that’s me and Hubie, all right!” she said. “I doubt you remember meeting me ten years ago at Mittelfrank—you certainly don’t remember your _daughter_. I have no idea how Hubie put it together. I never told him that you’re my father. I didn’t even remember your whole name.” 

“You! My daughter?” She expected him to be shocked. Instead, he lifted his chin contemptuously and stared her down in a way that was meant to humiliate her. Who, she thought, her head pounding, had given him the right to think that way of anyone? “Prove it,” he said, jabbing a finger at the ground. “Do you have my Crest? Are you going to claim I impregnated some woman? Otherwise, you’ve set the empire on me for no reason!” 

“My mother was Wendela, a maid in your house on Cichol’s Way. Now do you remember?” Dorothea said. “That’s the only difference between you and the whole gaggle of pointless noble men in this city: you happen to be related to me. And if you thought this would convince the emperor’s hounds to ease up on you, it won’t. I’ll tell them to run harder—I’ll tell the emperor herself to ruin you—and don’t think she won’t listen to me! We’re done here.” 

The yelling drew the attention of some members of the company, who started shouting at Nadaud, too, until he ducked away, walking quickly out of sight. The limp only seemed to bother him on stairs, and she had a dark urge to summon him to the palace, with its hundreds of steps up, just to watch him try to make it down without falling. 

She forced herself back into the carriage. She held onto the eagle, letting its points dig into her hand and bump against her rings. Done well for herself! If that man knew how difficult it’d be for anyone to sleep their way into Edelgard’s favor… He probably thought it was as easy as lying back and taking it, if he even thought the emperor might be interested in her. Why would the emperor be interested in his cast-offs? It was well-known that the emperor was a refined, unflinching woman. Perhaps he thought the men and women the emperor liked would have to be either so vulgar that the emperor would become aroused if only through disgust, or people so delicate and dainty that the emperor could not breathe on them without causing them to crumble away. That was what commoners and nobles alike said of Edelgard’s tastes. 

She should have been harsher on him. She should have smote him or pushed him to the ground… She shouldn’t have told him he was, only in the most technical of senses, her father—he didn’t deserve to know, and worse, now he’d have motive to seek her out. He’d feel entitled to her. She didn’t have any faith in nobles. She wished Edelgard would have been there so she could watch him cower; so she could tell Edelgard to do something to him, and watch her faithful Edelgard do as she asked. Her ride home was full of such thoughts. 

#

The palace was silent when the carriage came in. All the guards were on alert. The staff had been called back into the walls. Dorothea asked a guard and was told that Arundel had arrived at the palace just before noon. He had been arrested and put in chains—enchanted, Dorothea knew, to keep him from Warping or transforming—and carried away to the dungeons. One of the dark, underground ones in secret parts of the palace that only Hubert’s people knew of. Right now, in the throne room, the Council of Ministers was arguing whether they should try him now or wait for Hubert and Ferdinand to come back. 

Edelgard had a messenger waiting around for Dorothea. She was told to not expect Edelgard for dinner; she’d be eating and debating with the ministers today. She requested a few words from Dorothea about her day and how she was feeling to liven up her otherwise depressing evening. 

Dorothea went to the musical practice room, took some paper and a fresh quill, and put down a few lines. The seminar had gone well. She reported back on the status of some of Edelgard’s favorite performers and musicians. 

The hardest part of the letter was trying to find a way to say ‘my father was waiting for me at Mittelfrank, and if you don’t come see me tonight, I’m going to lose my mind’ without making it sound too urgent. She settled on, ‘Wake me up if I’m asleep by the time you come back. Something happened at the company, and I’d like to talk to you about it.’ 

She had, after all this time, something that was almost an opera about the war. Edelgard played less of a prominent role than she was hoping for: the distant, faraway emperor others sang to or about, but never seemed to do much more than to stare at people and belt a few bars. Such a pity. She had written the role with her own voice in mind. Someday, she’d have a proper opera to offer. As much as Edelgard hated thinking about her legacy, Dorothea thought she should have the chance to see Fodlan as something more than a series of conquests and problems. And, selfishly, she wanted people to know her name as a composer and a libretto. No idiot noble would ever come up to her and insinuate she had slept her way into knowing music. They’d hear for themselves just what her talents were. 

The kitchen sent dinner up to her, and she took the time to look over her sheet music while she ate. 

She worked on the music for longer than she wanted to, anticipating that Edelgard’s meeting would run late. She kept looking up, hoping Edelgard would be there. Then, when she checked the clock, there she was: her wife in a navy blue dress with a severe, imposing silhouette. A white cape fluttered from her shoulders; a thick binder in her arm. She had been drinking, as she usually did at the meetings, though the only trace was a slight flush on her cheeks. 

“Bring your opera to the director for the winter season,” Edelgard said. “To my ear, it sounds as good as any show I’ve had to bring myself to.” 

“Who between us is the musician?” Dorothea said, smiling down at her papers. “How long have you been lurking there?” 

“Only a minute. I’m headed back to our room. Will you come with me?” 

Dorothea put the cover over the piano keys. She went to the door and kissed Edelgard’s cheek. “Did your meeting go well with the Council?” 

“The trial will be tomorrow, no thanks to Ferdinand’s secretary. She’s a worse bullheaded obstructionist than he is. What happened at the company?” 

“Oh, it’s not important,” she said. “It can wait until we’re done with Arundel.” 

“I’m done thinking about Arundel. I’ve been at it all day. I didn’t marry you just so I could rest my eyes on your face or listen to you sing. If it’s truly so unimportant, then you can tell me now, and we can talk of Arundel in our room all you like. If it requires more of my attention, then I’m happy to give it. I love you, after all.”

“Do you,” she said, growing shy. It was true, she knew, but after a fight, remembering that it was true made a bright feeling go through her, one similar to surprise. Like finding a gift for herself she had forgotten she had bought. 

“Very much, with my whole being.” Edelgard ran her hand along Dorothea’s back, petting her. “Now tell me what’s happening.” 

A few more long pets and Dorothea’s confession was spilling out. “A man I used to know was waiting for me at the company. An incredibly unpleasant… I hated him then, and I hate him now.” 

“Should we have bodyguards for you?” Edelgard said. “Just to keep him away. You’re perfectly capable of eliminating him yourself, but I wouldn’t want it to come to that.” 

“I don’t know. Honestly, I’d like him dead. You have no idea, Edie, what a mess he made of my life—how awful things were because of him.” Her anger was spilling out of her. She could feel the tension building in Edelgard, too. Dorothea rubbed her hip to soothe her before she could bolt out of the palace with her axe in hand. “He never touched me, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just the type of person he was—” Edelgard passed her a handkerchief, and Dorothea used it to blow her nose. 

“It’s all right,” she said. “Dorothea, don’t cry. Whoever it is, I won’t hesitate to crush him. Point him out or tell me his name, and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything within the sphere of my power, provided that it is within reason. Who is it?” 

Hubert already had him. She couldn’t imagine anyone else using the Ministry of the Imperial Household against her father otherwise. Dorothea wondered if he had told Edelgard. Either way, Dorothea had just found out now. 

“Oh—just wait a minute,” she said. “What if I just want to talk? What if I don’t want you to crush him with the full force of the emperor’s power?” 

“You’ve said I’m a good listener.” 

“I’ve also said just the opposite, so don’t let it get to your head.” 

Edelgard said she’d wake up early in the morning to keep working. Dorothea meant to help her relax, maybe make some herbal tea and show off her latest work on the opera. Instead, she threw herself at Edelgard the second Edelgard put her binder down on the desk. They hadn’t made love since their big fight, and she was feeling pent up and in need of release. 

Getting Edelgard in the mood to take control didn’t take much these days. The key was to draw Edelgard’s tongue into her mouth and let her plunder as she liked. It never hurt to encourage Edelgard feel her up, either. The meeting for the trial must have been more frustrating than Edelgard let on: Edelgard, who was usually indulgent with her kisses, backed Dorothea into her desk, flipped her skirts out of the way, and squeezed the front of her thighs. 

“What do you think of my necklace?” Dorothea said. 

“It suits you well. We should take it off you, nonetheless,” Edelgard said. She moved one hand away from Dorothea’s thigh to move some of her hair off one shoulder to see the necklace better. Dorothea held her arms above her head, and Edelgard took that as an invitation to kiss her breasts. It built up a nice heat in her gut, but too slow for her liking. 

“I’ll prepare myself,” Dorothea said. “Get out of your clothes and into your harness.” 

She really needed to convince Edelgard to wear trousers more often. In the time it took for Edelgard to shed her dress and the armor she wore underneath—why did she have that on?—then fit the glass dildo in the harness and get herself secure in it, Dorothea had gotten out of her dress and brought herself to climax while staring at Edelgard’s ass. Once Edelgard saw she had Dorothea’s attention, she smiled coyly and ran her hand up and down the shaft of the curved glass. 

“Stop playing around,” Dorothea said, squirming against the desk and her hand. “You can’t even feel that. And you’re keeping me waiting.” 

“I’m warming it up. You don’t want to take it cold, do you?” She twisted her hand around the shaft a few times before pausing. “You seem distracted. What are you thinking?” 

“I think you’d have more fun on top if you used a plug. Won’t it be a nice way to reward you later?” 

“You don’t have to goad me,” Edelgard said. “If you want me to take care of you tonight, then just say so. I’ll do anything you like.” 

Dorothea went silent. It always unsettled her when Edelgard saw through her performances, especially when she hadn’t been consciously putting it on. And what was she even performing for? Edelgard didn’t care for artifice unless they were both in on it. 

“Give it to me hard. Don’t leave me wanting.” 

“The plug was a good idea. I’ll put one in.” 

Edelgard turned her back to Dorothea to look through the drawer. She kept her back turned as she prepared the way with oil and a smaller plug, then pushed a fat glass plug into herself—Dorothea was too far to have the full view, but she had seen it before, and could imagine the way her asshole stretched around the intrusion before pulling itself shut around the narrow neck. Dorothea watched the shiver go up her legs and bit down on the inside of her cheek. 

Edelgard took some blankets from the couch, threw it onto the ground, and put Dorothea on her back on top of it. Before Dorothea could complain about being fucked on the floor again, Edelgard spread her legs and put the toy at her entrance. Edelgard had warmed it to just above body temperature with magic. It slid around like a hot ball up to her clit, down to the bottom of her folds, onto her thigh, before Edelgard steadied it with a hand and slid it in. The big head popped over her pubic bone, and Dorothea’s cunt pulsed around it, relaxing around the unyielding length. 

Edelgard pumped her hips right away, ramping to a good, galloping pace. The glass needed little lubrication: the slickness from watching Edelgard plug herself was all she needed to make it an easy fuck. Soon, Edelgard’s frantic hands, sliding from her breasts to her legs, over her stomach, back to her breasts, into her mouth, had Dorothea dripping around her cock. 

“Faster,” Dorothea said. And then, wrapping her legs around Edelgard’s waist and pulling her in: “Faster, Edie.”

Edelgard put her right leg on her shoulder, angled her hips, and plunged in. She ground down against Dorothea’s clit, pulled away, and thrust in again. Dorothea felt it all over, in her cheeks, in the soles of her feet. Her shoulders seized, her abs tightened, and her hand flailed out, searching for some part of Edelgard to hold. “Still need more?” Edelgard said. She got so _smug_ when she made Dorothea come on her dick, but what was Dorothea supposed to do? Deny herself? A few more strokes, and she couldn’t hold back any longer. 

“Edie! Your Majesty,” she cried out and came to the sound of Edelgard’s laughter and Edelgard’s nails digging into her ass. Her cries became whimpers, then the occasional gasp in between her attempts to get her breathing back. Edelgard let Dorothea’s legs slide off her shoulders and settle on the ground again. She was, just as Dorothea knew she would be, smiling in that pleased way of hers, when Dorothea had given her what she wanted. She almost wished she had taken her father with her to the palace. Let him watch the Emperor of all Fodlan take her on the floor, on the Council table, in the gazebo in the flower garden. Even if he’d just turn it around to accuse her of sleeping her way to power, she’d always have Edelgard. Why was that thought turning her on? 

Edelgard had stayed inside her, giving her long and slow strokes while Dorothea came down. Soon, Dorothea was tightening her cunt against the glass and moving her hips to match her. She knew she didn’t look pretty like this: her face was scrunched up, too concentrated on getting more pleasure, and her hair was a mess on the blanket. Edelgard would enjoy looking at her, anyway. 

“Do whatever you want with me, Edie. Do whatever—whatever you want, do whatever you want,” she said. At first, it only made Edelgard cup her breasts in her hands and squeeze them. Then she gave a few truly inspired thrusts that made it feel like Edelgard was forcing her to come, fucking it out of her even when she tried to hold it in. She lifted herself off Dorothea. Sweat dripped off her brow and onto Dorothea’s knee. 

“I’m going to turn you over now.” Edelgard didn’t even pull her off her cock: she picked Dorothea up, drew her hips back halfway to turn her around on it, and put her on her hands and knees. She ran both hands, one on each side of her spine, along her back, clearing Dorothea’s hair away from her skin. She pulled out long enough to turn the dildo around inside the harness so the curve faced down, then worked the dildo deep into her again, not stopping until their thighs touched. She ground against Dorothea’s ass for a few seconds, pulled out a short distance, then went straight back in. Edelgard’s hand left her hip in favor of cradling her throat in her fingers. A light, but firm, pressure. “You’ve said this is mine before. Is it?” 

“I’m—” She could feel the vibrations in her neck; feel the way she was practically leaking all over Edelgard’s fingers on her clit, the way Edelgard curled her fingers around her throat slightly in excitement. “I’m yours, Edie. My voice is yours. You can have anything you want. Take my voice, burn it up, kill me, do whatever you want. I love you so much.”

“Hmm.”

“Your Majesty,” she said, and that did it. Edelgard’s thrust knocked her off her hands and onto her forearms. Edelgard took her hand off her throat and covered her nose and mouth, like she was one of those half-witted kidnappers that used to try to sneak up on Dorothea as a girl. 

“Be mine,” Edelgard said. “That’s all I ask.” 

The rippling in her cunt spread further out to her legs and abs as Edelgard kept working her, playing with her clit and keeping her hand over Dorothea’s mouth and noise. She shook Dorothea’s face in her hand occasionally, to remind her of her helplessness. Her arms and legs were distant islands. Her attempts to keep talking, to tell Edelgard to take more, to do more, failed. Either there wasn’t enough air, or, when Edelgard relented and let her breathe through the gaps of her fingers, her mouth was too full of spit and her tongue transformed into a slab of somehow dry meat useless for making words. Dorothea tried and tried again, until she had to accept that she had offered her voice, and it had been taken without a thought. Tears stung her eyes. 

It wasn’t the first time Edelgard had asked for her voice, and usually she loved it. She didn't know what was wrong with her. The hot, mounting pressure in her face and burning in her lungs made her want to break out of her skin and escape elsewhere. She pulled Edelgard’s spit-covered palm away from her mouth, and took in horrible, wet mouthfuls of air. A disgusting sound. 

“Have you had enough? Are you hurt?” Edelgard said, pulling out of her quickly. Dorothea shook her head. She bit down on Edelgard’s thumb and turned her hand over, palm down, onto the blanket. It was the hand of the emperor of Fodlan, her Edelgard, who could take her voice, but always gave it back. When Edelgard started to pull away, she grabbed her arm. 

“Not yet. I still want you,” she said. Her voice sounded scratchy, like she had been recently ill. She reached behind her until she felt the hot, slick tip of Edelgard's cock, and pulled it to her cunt. 

Edelgard thrusts were just as hard as before, but slower. She rubbed Dorothea’s clit just how she liked it when she was about to come, the glans caught between two fingertips and held down tight. Dorothea wanted to make it last, wanted to stay there, in the center of the dizzying flame, but it was hopeless. Her body locked, her cries went into the blanket, and she came. She fell off the toy and into the blanket. 

“Oh—fuck, Edie,” she said when Edelgard got between her legs to eat her out from behind. She sucked each labia into her mouth, wound her tongue along them. Licked her like she was touch the inside of Dorothea with her tongue. Dorothea put her face in her arms. Her hips moved unconsciously, and Edelgard didn't hold her down, only moved with her while squeezing her ass. She came, utterly lost, with Edelgard's tongue deep inside her. 

When she came to, Edelgard had cast the harness aside and fetched more blankets and an entire pile of pillows. Some water was on the desk. 

“Do you feel better?” Edelgard said. “You scared me. I thought I hurt you.” 

“You'd never hurt me. I wasn't in the right place,” she said. Just as she knew it, her voice had come back. “I was over it the second you let me go.” Dorothea stretched her arms out, inviting Edelgard in for a kiss. Edelgard looked doubtful, but didn't stop Dorothea from licking the come out of her mouth. She felt better then, especially once Dorothea wedged a hand between her legs, pushing against the base of the plug. 

Dorothea had enough of kissing and sent Edelgard away to prepare a new, clean space for them to fuck next. She sipped water, stretched her legs, and considered the different things they could do together. Somehow, getting older and married had only made her more invested in extracting as much pleasure from their time together as she could. 

“Turn around,” Dorothea said. “Let me see you from behind.” 

Edelgard hesitated only for a moment before turning and raising her ass up for Dorothea’s pleasure, and kept working. When she was done setting things up, she went to sit in the middle—Dorothea clicked her tongue and she turned around, ass facing Dorothea, and lay down on her stomach. She spread her asscheeks and lifted her hips up. 

“What else?” Edelgard said without meeting Dorothea’s eyes. Dorothea's insides burned. It wasn’t a position Edelgard liked, so to have it offered willingly… It did things to her. The aesthetic pleasures of her strong legs and broad back; her visibly wet cunt and her asshole tight around the plug inside. And the pure vulnerability, how she relaxed into it instead of sulking or shaking with quiet anger. That deserved a reward. 

“Get on your side,” Dorothea said. She threw two pillows from her pile to Edelgard so she could put them under her hip and knee. “I want you to touch yourself. Pussy only. The plug was my idea, after all.”

It didn’t take Edelgard long to work herself to the brink, massaging her folds and grinding her clit against the heel of her palm. Her hips moved in smooth, natural circles; all that time she spent working with wyverns and horses was good for something after all. Dorothea moved in closer so she could have a better view. The insides of her thighs were covered in arousal and her pussy was swollen and wet. Every time Edelgard came close to coming, her asshole fluttering around the neck of the plug, and her face would freeze, and she slowed down again. Dorothea didn’t have to do a thing; not a word, not a gesture, not even a flicker of her eyes. Mine, she thought. 

“Dorothea,” she said. Her toes were curling already. She really wasn’t going to last long. “It’s becoming difficult to hold back. Can I?” 

“Not yet,” she said, taking care to affect an indifferent tone. “I like watching you put that discipline of yours to the test. Do you want a kiss?” 

Edelgard always wanted kisses; another way she could be easily manipulated in bed. Dorothea moved onto the blankets in full now, but not far enough to reach Edelgard’s mouth. Edelgard made an unhappy noise, and Dorothea silenced her by sucking in as much of her breast into her mouth as she could. She wrapped her fingers around the base of the plug and pulled out until it reached its widest point, then pushed it back in until her hole closed around the narrow neck. Dorothea kept stretching her rim and sucking at her breast until Edelgard’s thighs shook around her hand. 

“I’m going to—I can’t help myself, it’s going to happen, oh—” Dorothea slapped both of Edelgard’s hands away from her pussy, pulled the plug all the way out, and took her mouth off her breast. 

“What if I stopped?” Dorothea mused while Edelgard tensed up, visibly betrayed. “What if I sent you to bed right now so you’ll be ready for the trial tomorrow?” 

“Have you lost all your reason?” It was almost astonishing how fast she could return to being the emperor. Dorothea pinched her nipple, as though she was trying to squish a bug. When that didn’t work, she twisted it, hard. Edelgard lowered her eyes and put her hands on her thighs. “If you were to do that, I would accept it.” 

“Liar. You’d be mad all night.” Dorothea pushed the flat of her fingers against her hole to feel it twitch. It was hot and wet, both from the oil Edelgard had used when she first put the plug in and from her cunt. She could probably take three fingers without a problem. “I’ve been spoiling you lately. Watching me come should be reward enough for you, yet I keep giving you more. It's teaching you bad habits. Though I can be persuaded, Your Majesty. Give me one of those famous speeches you use to inspire your armies. Why do you deserve to come?” 

“Because I love you,” she said, and fuck. Dorothea hadn’t meant to give it to her so easily, but Edelgard’s body was eager and ready and sucked her finger right in. Edelgard arched into her and moaned, then bit her lip, trying to not get carried away. Dorothea would shake that discipline loose soon enough. “Because you’re the one I choose to be with. You’re the only one. Should I say more? Do you want more?” 

“That’s all I need. That’s perfect.” She took Edelgard’s nipple back into her mouth and added a second finger to her asshole and smiled when Edelgard’s back arched. Edelgard looped her arms around Dorothea’s shoulders. 

“The other one, please,” she said. “It’s more sensitive—mm, that’s good. I want your teeth, please, give me your teeth…” 

This time, when Dorothea eased the plug back in, she worked a finger alongside the plug. It was hard work getting a second finger in, with so much crammed inside already, but worth it to see how Edelgard surrendered her body to so little: two fingers and a plug in her ass, a finger on her clit, Dorothea’s teeth squeezing her nipple. Her whole body heaved, shivered. Heaved again, as Dorothea slid her fingers in and out, the plug moving occasionally when her palm or fingers hit the base. Edelgard’s heel hooked around Dorothea’s back, bringing her closer. 

It wouldn’t take much more to make her come. Easy, she thought. The easiest thing in the world. 

#

Arundel’s trial was done in three days. It went as planned: he was found guilty of all charges, and would be executed by the end of the week, or whenever they found a suitable executioner. It happened behind closed doors, and the second they were done, Edelgard found Dorothea in the music practice room and said, “Let’s go out.” 

“Right now?” Dorothea said. 

“Not for long. We should go ride on the beach. I cleared my schedule in case the trial lasted all day, and Hubert’s little elf won’t come looking for me for a while yet. Ah, but Ulrika might, so we should hurry.” 

As always, it took forever to get Edelgard out of her ostentatious imperial outfit and into riding clothes. Dorothea had enough time after changing to go to the kitchens to get something to eat. They were off to the stables not long after. Edelgard never swam, but she loved the salt air and how it stung on her face. She went knee-deep into the ocean, stomping around until a wave took her feet from under her. She scurried back to shore, dripping wet and mad about it. 

“I could teach you how to swim,” Dorothea said. “Petra says I’m pretty good at it the last time I was in Brigid.”

“What I would _like_ is for the ocean to behave itself.” 

They dried off in the sand together, then continued down the path, which took them along Enbarr’s white cliffs. 

“I’ve been coming out here since I was a girl, with my father and my siblings,” Edelgard said, squinting against the sun. “Uncle Volkhard used to take me for Faith lessons. He said you could feel the Goddess better in the sunlight. Wouldn’t you like that for the children, crummy platitudes aside? It’s about time we start looking.”

“It sounds lovely,” Dorothea said. Edelgard had a charmed childhood, up to a point. Nothing like her childhood, but who needed that? “Do you plan on pointing at orphans on the street and saying, ‘You, there! I command you to come with me?’ Or will you wait until you hear someone singing on a street corner and say, ‘I choose you, little one?’” Edelgard kept a slightly faster pace on the path than Dorothea. At a turn, her face in profile showed her serious, thinking expression. “Edie, we can’t do that.” 

“You liked looking after your band of war orphans.” 

“This is more than looking after those kids,” Dorothea said. “You’ll have secret expectations of them that you won’t know of until they try to fight you. Some of those children are scoundrels, and you’re not always patient. Don’t smirk at me.” 

“Parenting will be a test of love no matter what child you end up with. Even if they’re a Metodey, I’ll still provide for them. My second brother was something of a reprobate, but we all loved him, anyway. Heinz. No, that can’t be right. Val, then? I’ll have to ask Father.” 

She used to think Edelgard was testing her by purposefully getting details of her own siblings wrong, but Dorothea knew well enough how quickly memories went if you didn’t tend to them. The most she had of her mother these days, aside from the bitter memories of her death and how pathetic she had looked waiting for her father to come save her while she wasted away, were strange flashes of the room they shared, her mother taking her to church, a birthday gift of fresh berries topped with cream. 

“I don’t mean to disrespect your brother’s memory, but it’s easier to love a prince than an urchin. You can’t get rid of a prince the same way you can get rid of an orphan.” 

“I hope you don’t think I’d discard people if they displease me.” 

“It’s not a real test unless you can fail.” 

“Failure is a necessary part of striving,” Edelgard said. She always sounded so confident when talking about children, even when Dorothea knew she had plenty of apprehensions herself. “It’ll be all right, Dorothea. I don’t intend on leaving anyone before my time. I'll protect them and you. And some people say parents make no difference in a child’s personality or development. Ferdinand’s father is among the foulest men imaginable, yet Ferdinand has never been short of upstanding. Regrettably so, sometimes.” 

“The best parent I’ve had was Manuela,” Dorothea said. “I barely remember my mother. And my father—” Sand was in her eyes, or so she thought. She thought of holding it back longer, but she was tired of keeping it to herself. She wanted Edelgard’s time and attention, and here it was. “I have no idea what kind of parent he’d be, but if he was anything like he was the other day, I was better off without him.”

Edelgard’s fingers tightened on the reins. “He was the one who met you at Mittelfrank, then. What was his business with you?” 

“He seemed to think the Minister of the Imperial Household was deeply offended by some comments he made about me during the war and came to apologize. The minister didn’t take well to people accusing his personal breeding bitch of sleeping her way up the army’s rank. Imagine that!” The anger cut through her before she could control it. Her cheeks burned with not just the humiliation of how he had treated her, but the remembered insults and slights—more than a decade of them, coming hot on her cheeks. “They don’t even think about it, do they? They take whatever they want and leave everyone else with nothing. And even after they’ve taken everything they can, they still find ways to take more.” 

Edelgard slowed her horse. She took the reins from Dorothea. “Let’s have this discussion on the grass,” Edelgard said. 

They found a sturdy tree to tie their horses to. Edelgard spread her riding jacket out on the sandy grass and had Dorothea sit on it. She stayed on her feet, petting her pretty, honey-colored mare. 

“What would you like me to do?” Edelgard said. “If he’s a noble, I can find a way to get you onto the family registry so you can take his title and rank. Or I can invite him to an important meeting and spend the entire time ridiculing his suggestions.” 

“I wish I could make him feel what I’ve felt. Something about him made me feel so helpless. I wasn’t your wife, I wasn’t a singer—I was a piece of trash who tricked my way into my position. I’m sure he was thrilled when my mother died. One less…” The thought was so poisonous that she was momentarily dizzy with disgust. Edelgard knelt in front of her. She had that insufferably kind look on her face. “I know you love me, so don’t start.” 

“Why don’t you want to hear it?” Edelgard said. “Do you not believe me?” 

“I do believe you. I worry you’ll get tired of always having to be kind.” 

“You’re wrong to think being kind to you, or any of our friends, is some kind of trial for me. Even when I have other things on my mind, I much rather think of you and how to make you happy. If I could, I’d give you only the sweets of life—” 

“Edie!” She didn’t know if she wanted Edelgard to keep going or to stop. It was difficult, sometimes, to be the sole focus of Edelgard’s attention when she was in a low mood. She knew well enough that she was a decent person, that she was loved, and almost certainly deserved it. On most days, hearing it said to her made her feel warm and protected. Today: guilty and fugitive. She laid back on the grass and patted her chest. “Get on top of me, won’t you?” 

Edelgard settled herself across Dorothea’s body, keeping the weight of her legs off Dorothea. Her head rested against Dorothea’s neck and shoulder, and her hand fit against her waist. 

“Those old nobles are poisoned by their belief in their own self-importance,” Edelgard said, propping her head up on her hand when she had enough of lying around. “There’s nothing of value in the way they think or how they treat others. And you forget that you aren’t nameless Dorothea anymore. You should exercise your power.” 

“My power to do what?” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Perform a cadenza and deafen old men?” 

“You know people. You know me. It’s been said I’m an important person in this part of the world. If you want him poisoned, I can write a letter to Hubert and it’ll be done.” Edelgard’s tone was light, but her face serious. Up close, she looked more tired than Dorothea realized. How awful of her to beg her busy wife for comfort. 

“Have you been sleeping?” Dorothea said. 

“Please don’t try to change the subject. I’d like to fix this problem for you.” 

Did it always used to always feel so casual to talk about murdering people? She felt like, at some point, she had found it unpleasant and something to avoid. Certainly during the war, she hadn’t wanted to talk about death. Until her father reappeared in her life, she had never wished for someone else’s death so fervently, and on such little substance. 

He had abandoned her to the worst part of her life. She couldn’t forget that. Even so, she didn’t want her future child to know she had ordered her father killed. She didn’t want them to ever worry she’d eliminate them from her life that way, and she didn’t want to hold the secret from them, either. Secrets had never done anything for her. 

“He meant nothing to me two weeks ago,” she said. “I should just get over myself and forget him. He’s not worth anything.” 

“You have time and options. And you’ll always be mine, no matter what you do. Shall we continue riding, or should we stay here and loaf a while longer?” 

Dorothea proposed loafing, and Edelgard’s face fell. Why give her a choice if she didn’t want to do one of them? Dorothea had fun pointing out all the other times Edelgard had done this until Edelgard pinned her to the grass and kissed her quiet. 

#

A suitable executioner had taken longer to find than expected. Edelgard wanted someone refined, dignified, and discreet, all things executioners were not. 

Dorothea watched from the walls. Arundel was brought out, not allowed any words, and then forced to his knees. They had him muzzled and almost extravagantly chained, as though he was some new type of brawler or war master. The whole time, he glared at Edelgard until his head was forced straight. They had the same eyes, Dorothea noticed. The same straight hair. 

The executioner looked sober, at the very least. The only people invited to watch were people Edelgard trusted—or, at the very least, trusted to spread word of Arundel’s demise to the right circles. It was a clean, good chop. She still felt an instinctive revulsion at the sight of his head coming off, but she didn’t have time to linger in that feeling. Edelgard had asked her to escort the head and body back to the basement of Linhardt’s institute. She went in an old, armored carriage, a four-seater, with the bagged body occupying one seat, and Dorothea, Fleche von Bergliez, and one of Fleche’s lieutenants in the other three. It seemed like overkill, but Dorothea was grateful when they lifted the body for her. It had been a long time since she had been this close to the dead. 

Linhardt was, as expected, wide awake for his special guest. He was dressed in a heavy black gown and a mask over his nose and mouth and his long hair pulled away. He had a tray ready with scapels and the type of tools used for cracking bones. 

“Ah, excellent,” he said. “I wondered whether the transformation spell automatically deactivated after death or not. Hmm. What’s the best way to undo it?” 

“I really wouldn’t know,” Dorothea said. “What’s all this for?” 

“We know nothing about their biology, and I might never have another chance to see one so fresh. Would you like to document?” 

She very much did not care to document. That was left to poor Fleche and Linhardt’s secretary. Four cots were pulled out: one for Linhardt in case he fainted while performing the autopsy, one for Fleche, one for anyone who might need a nap, and one for anyone who might accidentally walk in. 

#

Back in the palace, she found Edelgard in her dressing room, arguing with Hubert’s deputy about whether or not it was appropriate for her to show up to a tea party in armor. The two of them were getting along well now, Dorothea observed. The deputy still didn’t like to come into their room early in the morning, but he had made a few dawn calls once Edelgard made it clear that she expected critical information to be delivered without regard for what state of dress she or Dorothea might be in. 

“Who’s hosting?” Dorothea said. 

“It’s the Filiberts and their circle,” said the deputy. 

“He’s right,” Dorothea said. “They’ll say you’re war-obsessed and trying to hold onto your old glory. I don’t think they’ll even like a ceremonial sword. They’ll want you with nothing more than your dagger.” It always struck her as a morbid touch that Edelgard kept Dimitri’s dagger, but neither Edelgard nor Hubert saw anything strange about it, and Ferdinand thought it was a beautiful sentiment. Nothing made sense about nobles. “Can I come with you? I can say things about that painter they’re all mad about right now.” 

“I’d be happy to be on your arm,” Edelgard said. “Change with me. I’m sorry to stain you with blood again.” 

Dorothea looked down. She had worn a layered black skirt to hide any blood, but some was dripping onto the shiny leather of her boots. “Doesn’t it make you want to clean me up? Sorry, Reimund.”

“No, no,” said Hubert’s deputy said. “We always hope for a virile emperor. Might I say we don’t respect them unless we catch them in compromising positions at least once a moon?” 

Hubert’s deputy left them so they could change. Or because he was tired of them. He was a single man, as far as Dorothea knew. 

“How _are_ you feeling about Arundel, anyway?” Dorothea said. “I know you prefer not to talk about it, but I’d like to know.” 

“I’m elated,” she said crisply. “Tired, but it’s over, and there’s much to be done. The treatments start soon, after all. I don’t have time to rest.” 

Dorothea gave her a look, which she ignored. Her feelings on the death of her tormentor were going into the basement of her mind for the time being, then. 

They wore matching jewelry. Edelgard let Dorothea put the gold necklace around her neck and her bright, teardrop earrings through the piercings on her lobes. She wore her wedding band on her finger, though under her gloves. Her crown for today was a hoop with a bright diamond at the center. For herself, Dorothea chose pointy, star-like earrings and a necklace that matched the jewels on the tiara. Her ring went around her neck, hidden. 

The summer party was pleasant enough. The Filiberts were an older couple with a constantly rotating cast of thirds popping in and out of their house; today’s third was a lank, dour man who only wanted to talk about paintings. Ferdinand had been instrumental in winning them over to Edelgard’s cause in the last year of the war, and now they found Edelgard delightful and fawned over her when she visited. Their slowness to come around and subsequent effusiveness irritated Edelgard, though she was good at hiding it. It had taken her a few years to catch on to the idea that not everyone could be persuaded by force of will. 

Dorothea was welcomed there and very popular. She had met at least half the party-goers already, though she was outside her usual social sphere. Rumors of her opera had reached the Filiberts’ circle, and various members of the party kept trying to wring answers out of her. They asked her if she could bring other members of the company: the director, the maestro, the flautist. They asked if it was true she lived in the palace. They had seen her getting out of the carriage with the emperor herself. Dorothea smiled mysteriously and said, “I have been told that I’m her type. But you’ll have to ask me again over lunch sometime.” 

“Is it true she executed a man not an hour ago?” said the Filiberts’ third. 

“Yes, and then she drank his blood and rolled around in it to enhance the red on that gorgeous dress of hers,” Dorothea said. She could tell she was having some effect on him, though she couldn’t tell if it was her occasional sharp word or just her pretty face. “Who’s spreading that rumor around?” 

She followed his line of sight to Lord Raban, the former Prime Minister. That idiot. Was he becoming senile or was he trying to show off his closeness to the emperor? He tried to duck away, but Dorothea cornered him quick enough, and with a smile, too. 

Edelgard kept a purposeful distance from Dorothea for most of the party so they could cover as much ground as possible, though she joined in on Dorothea’s conversations occasionally. Over the years, Edelgard had learned to hold back her intimidating seriousness. She gave her appraisals of operas, spoke of paintings she had seen in some other lord’s house, was animated about cuttings of rare flowers she had acquired from Almyra and Brigid—she was happy to share if they’d come over to the palace, and she’d be glad to make an introduction to Bernadetta von Varley. As for orchids, did they have any advice for her on managing soil acidity… Dorothea had to remind herself to let her eyes settle on places that weren’t Edelgard’s face or the swell of her hip. 

They left early so Edelgard could get to her next party. There was another carriage at the entrance. A pair of latecomers. Her father with some woman—his wife, she supposed, this tiny woman… 

This awful bile bubbled in her chest. They were out of sight of the garden party. The closer they got, the slower her father and his wife walked. They were palpably anxious to see the emperor heading down the same path as them and clearly trying to think of something to say. Edelgard sighed and rolled her shoulders back. Her emperor face was still on. Dorothea took her arm, kissed her cheek, then her ear. It wasn’t rational, and she knew Edelgard hadn’t liked it, but, seeing the way her father’s eyes widened—let him tell her she had done well for herself now. Let him say that in front of Edelgard. 

“Your Majesty,” said Lord Nadaud. He bowed. Too deep. Dorothea didn’t have to look at Edelgard to see her displeased face. “General Arnault. I didn’t realize you were on the guest list, or I would have come earlier.” 

“I’m afraid I didn’t send my RSVP until the last minute,” Edelgard said. “You have the look of a traditional Enbarr man. I’m sure we’ve met before. You are?” 

Nadaud looked at Dorothea, then Edelgard, and said nothing. His wife spoke, filling in the awkward gap. 

“He is Baron Gereon Nadaud, and I am Countess Daphne Romola.” 

Not his wife, then. Unless she was? Dorothea had never heard of Countess Romola in her life. There were some odd touches to Romola’s clothes, the sheen of the silk, the way she pinned her hair, that didn’t look Adrestian. Maybe she was from the old Alliance. If that was the case, why would she choose her father, of all people, to be with? 

“Hmm.” Just as Dorothea suspected. Edelgard knew his name. Edelgard’s eyes slid to Dorothea for just a moment before returning to Nadaud and Romola. “Pleased to meet you both. I’ve been taking on some of Prime Minister Aegir and Minister Ordelia’s social duties, so we may well see more of each other soon. I must be going. Farewell.” 

“Give Her Majesty the gift!” Romola whispered to Nadaud. 

Edelgard fixed them with a cold stare. Nadaud and Romola gazed at her, stricken. “I have no need for _bribes_ ,” she said, and swept away. Dorothea felt a tug of pride and, shamefully, excitement. A perfect performance. 

In the carriage, Dorothea said, “How did you know he was my father?” 

“Hubert looked into it when we were drawing up the marriage contracts,” Edelgard said. “We narrowed it down to two lords, based on the information we had about your mother. We never meant for our interference to get back to you.” 

She should just forget him. She should go on and let her life go exactly as it had been before. She didn’t want to be petty. She wanted him to get what he deserved. 

“I don’t want him in the city anymore,” she said. “When we get home, teach me how to make that happen.” 

That was what power was, after all. The ability to choose the course of someone else’s life. She’d take it, just this once. 


	12. siege

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard and Dorothea leave Enbarr for treatment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains an extended magical medical treatment with shades of internalized ableism and PTSD.

Blue Sea Moon was nearly over. 

Unsurprisingly, they were fighting again, though in a perfunctory way: they’d find each other, have a spat for ten minutes, and carry on. Every hour, it seemed, Edelgard came up with little schemes to take on more work or find new projects, and dropped them when Dorothea told her she was being obstinate. She was being a baby about the whole thing. If she didn’t give up so easily, Dorothea would’ve been genuinely incensed. 

“Why are you doing this?” Dorothea said the fifth time it happened. 

“I know it’s not entirely rational,” she said, in a rare moment of self-reflection. 

Soon, they’d be out of the city and in the country house, an easy two hours by carriage from the palace. The wedding party had taken Shambhala, and had split up to destroy the few remaining nests. Hubert and Byleth would meet them at the house; Ferdinand would return to Enbarr when he could. There was literally not enough time for Edelgard to run herself down. 

#

The house they stayed at was a strange, beautiful place. It had been maintained over the years, though, as far as Dorothea could tell, no one had actually lived there since one of Edelgard’s older brothers passed away. 

“What a waste!” Edelgard said. “There are much better uses of this land and the people maintaining it. We should decommission it and use the materials for some better purpose.” 

She was in a good mood as she roamed around the house, critiquing the furniture and casting judgmental stares at the wallpaper. The house had countless angry eagles glaring down at them from the molding. Edelgard liked those very much. 

The treatment started the same day. They did it in the library, on a long chaise facing the window. The medicine entering her arm was cold, and so blankets and pillows were brought up. She was tired afterwards and went to bed. By dinner, she was up again. She ate readily and put on a good mood for Dorothea and their friends. Manuela sent Edelgard to bed early with a sleeping draft. Dorothea had to hassle her to take it. 

“Do you _want_ the nightmares?” she said. “They’ve been scary lately. You don’t do well with needles.” 

“If I wake up, I’ll take it.”

“If you wake up, then it’s already too late. Stop fighting me on this. You said you’d leave yourself in my hands.” 

“I know. I know. It’s an adjustment, that’s all.” She uncorked the vial, took a long swig, then made a face. It was a bitter drink. She sipped some water, then held her hand out to Dorothea. “I think Hubert’s going to bring me a dog. He said he had a gift for me in his letter.”

Dorothea snorted. “Edie, he’s going to bring you a string of heads and hands.” 

“An Aegir hound. Ferdinand says they make good house dogs as well as hunting hounds. Though I’d like a look at the inheritance reform bill Lysithea’s drafting… And I’d like to hear what type of place she found for her parents, since she was so against their last house. I forgot to ask about your father…” 

It didn’t take Dorothea long to realize Edelgard wasn’t going to be able to keep her focus for longer than a few sentences at a time. Dorothea followed her conversation wherever it went: a poem, a salted duck egg from Dagda, a count she was thinking of shipping off to a rocky corner of the Alliance. Then the conversation tucked itself back into the matter of dogs, and she was asleep again not long after. 

#

After that, they didn’t have much time together. By the end of the first week, Edelgard spent more time asleep than awake. She ran a near-constant low fever that Linhardt kept describing as “normal.” She had occasional aches in her legs, which she attributed to lying down all the time. Linhardt told them to expect worse soon; it made Edelgard prickly and defensive. They had watched Lysithea seized up by pain when she went through her treatments. Edelgard insisted she was not likely to suffer the same effects, but Dorothea knew the aches were setting in earlier and lasting longer by the day. 

Two weeks after they arrived at the house, Linhardt left for Enbarr as scheduled, saying everything was proceeding within acceptable limits. 

“I barely got eight hours with her yesterday,” Dorothea said. “I’ve seen statues more lively.” 

“So?” he said. “That sounds normal to me. Maybe she’s catching up on fifteen years of not sleeping. I know that’s how I’d use my time if I were her.” 

“That’s not how sleep works, and you know it.” 

“You sound lonely,” he said. Because this was Linhardt she was talking to, he finished up with, “I’m going home now. There are plenty of people in the house. You should talk to them.” She hit his shoulder. “Ouch,” he said mildly. 

She started leaving the house with Manuela and Hanneman at least once a day: to the lake, the gardens, the village a few miles away. Sometimes they spent the day making music together, taking breaks to check in on Edelgard, who was often asleep or reading. The feedback and suggestions she got from Manuela both elated and depressed her. Manuela said she should submit it to the director once they got back to the city, then handed her three pages of suggestions. When she went to complain to Edelgard, Edelgard nodded a few times and started drifting off again. A pretty picture, but Dorothea liked her better awake. 

#

Five weeks in, at the start of Horsebow Moon. Hubert, Linhardt let Edelgard take a week off from treatment. Ferdinand had returned to Enbarr two weeks before. The last letter from Byleth and Hubert said they were on their way. 

The improvement in Edelgard’s alertness was immediate, though the pain persisted. Edelgard was awake, inquisitive, and made plans to rearrange the house to be more to her tastes. She wanted to get rid of most of the portraits and disliked many of the sculptures, finding them stuffy and old-fashioned. She had read something about redirecting rivers in a letter, and she thought the farms would flood less if the townspeople made use of the new construction technique. Somehow, it always turned out like this with Edelgard: they started by shuffling portraits on the walls and ended up dragging the mayor to the house to talk about changing the course of the river. 

Dorothea left in the morning to ride along the lake. When she came back, Edelgard was already up and dressed. She was in the garden, dressed in her big summer hat and a long-sleeved dress, quizzing the gardener about the soil. 

“Manuela tells me you’ve finished the opera,” Edelgard said when Dorothea came for her. “You should play it for me. It’s been a while since I’ve listened.” 

Dorothea played nearly an hour of piano, flute, and song for her. She was awake the whole time. All Edelgard said was, “It sounds lovely,” and then accused her of not being Carolina von Heuvel. 

“You’re putting words in my mouth,” Edelgard said. “I was only referencing her because her three-part overtures _are_ attention-grabbing. Even if you don’t like what happens after, people remember the overtures.” 

“You’re going to make me redo my entire opera because you like every first hour of a Heuvel and nothing that comes after. Why can’t you let me do the overture my way? I’ve been working on this for my entire life, and all you do is think about Giuseppe Tancred’s pet composer.” 

“Dorothea, you’re being dramatic.” 

“ _Dramatic_? Of all people to call me dramatic—”

After lunch, Edelgard wanted to go look for her favorite cats in the house. They wound up back in the gardens, where the cats had gathered in the shade of a brick wall. Edelgard liked cats she could roughen up, push on their sides, and treat like dogs. For some reason, all the cats in the palace were taken with Edelgard and let her do whatever she wanted with them; all the ones who did not want to be handled like that must have run off years ago. The cats here dodged her unless she brought them food. Dorothea draped her arm against Edelgard’s back. It was dense and broad, and warm from the sun.

“We could take the house for ourselves once I retire,” Edelgard said when she tired of making kissy noises at the cats. “It has a good location. We’ll close off half and open it up as we take on more children.” 

“You sound like you’ve already decided.” She liked it when Edelgard went on and on about the future. It was a spell Edelgard cast on both of them: this beautiful, dreamy world where Edelgard wasn’t the emperor. 

“If you don’t like it, we’ll find somewhere else. I’ll build it with my own two hands, if I have to.”

“I’d _love_ to see you do that. I’d watch. And when you need a boost in motivation, I’ll be there with a towel to wipe you off.” 

“Just a towel?” 

“What else could the mighty Emperor of All Fodlan need? You don’t expect me to use the hammer, do you?”

“True. Heaven forbid you hit your nail. Your voice would never function again.”

“Why you—” 

Edelgard kissed her. First lightly, to placate her, then opening her lips further to draw Dorothea’s tongue in. Her hand rested on Dorothea’s waist, both for balance and hold her tight. Dorothea hadn’t been kissed like that in weeks. Her first thought was that they shouldn’t, not now. She didn’t want to wear Edelgard out. Then she thought fuck it. She had been masturbating alone for a month. If Edelgard thought she was up for it, then she’d take what she could. 

“You’ve been patient, haven’t you?” Edelgard said, releasing Dorothea’s mouth to kiss her neck. “I want to treat you.” 

Her hand was making its way to the top of Dorothea’s dress. She looked like she was going to yank it down and then fuck her right there if Dorothea didn’t stop her. She’d probably keep fucking her, even if Manuela and Hanneman came by for their afternoon teatime. Dorothea pushed Edelgard off. Edelgard didn’t let her at first—wanted, Dorothea realized, to prove her strength. 

They went to the bedroom. Dorothea had just enough time to grab the bag with their toys before Edelgard practically tackled her into the bed. Deep kisses and hands rucking at Dorothea’s skirts, then her fingers in her mouth, pinning her tongue down and inching her fingers down Dorothea’s throat. It wasn’t bad so far, but Edelgard was always at her cruelest when she was taking Dorothea’s mouth: covering her face to control her breathing, smothering her with her pussy or ass, or making Dorothea hold her paintbrushes or gloves until her tongue was parched. 

“There,” Edelgard said, and held up her prize: a leather dildo stuffed with wool. “Hold this for me.” 

The tip went past her lips, flattening her tongue down. Edelgard’s eyes flashed. Faster, then. She forced herself forward on the dildo, swallowing until it entered her throat, and that pleased Edelgard. Edelgard adjusted the angle of Dorothea’s head. She always did like a picture. Then she fucked her mouth for a while, smiling when Dorothea whined. 

“Good. Good.” Edelgard pet Dorothea through her underwear, then pulled it aside and slid two fingers in. Dorothea made a strangled noise. She knew she wanted it, so much, but she hadn’t expected her body to thrash against the bed, hips canting towards Edelgard’s hand. Spit was coming out the side of her mouth. Her cunt dripped. Edelgard slid the dildo all the way inside and tapped Dorothea’s upper lip until Dorothea made her arms move to hold the dildo in place. “Perfect. Every time, you’re perfect. Beautiful. Keep it inside.” 

Her straining throat and lips were echoed by the stretch in her cunt. It felt good—more than that, it felt normal, like they were back home, and Edelgard was bored and wanted something pretty to look at and something soft under her fingers. She let out a string of moans and whimpers as Edelgard stretched her cunt with three, then four fingers. Her cunt was trying to grab Edelgard’s whole hand and suck it in. The tension in her stomach doubled, tripled, even, and her cunt could feel everything, each knuckle, each stroke—

“You’re so pretty when you’re coming,” Edelgard said. She was breathing hard herself. Her cheeks were pink and forehead shiny with sweat. “Go on, Dorothea. Give me what I like to see. You want to come, so hurry up.” 

They stopped not long after Dorothea came. Edelgard needed to rest. She curled up against Dorothea and let Dorothea touch her freely. Dorothea knew they didn’t have long. The medicine was having some odd effects on the bones in Edelgard’s hips, ribs, and thighs, and all the places where the Slithers had made their cuts. She kissed the edges of the scars on her chest. 

“Not there,” Edelgard said, shifting away. 

“Sorry. Here?” Dorothea moved her attention higher up to her shoulders and neck. 

They lounged around in bed kissing and playing cards until evening. It was almost normal if not for the glaze of pain building in Edelgard’s eyes as the afternoon went on. Dorothea felt a cut of sadness then. After this, she’d have to tell Manuela to adjust the dose on the pain medicine. 

“Let’s try again in the morning,” Edelgard said. “I want you to have me. I want you to push my face into the bed and ravish me. We only have a few more days until I have to take that vile medicine again. If not now, then when?”

“Have you been you touching yourself at all, or does it hurt too much?” Dorothea said. 

“I’ve tried. It’s hard to come.” A momentary flicker of anger. Then Edelgard licked her lips and let her arousal take over. “I think of you often.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me how you’re touching me in your fantasies. Unless it’s the other way around, the way it should be.” 

Edelgard flushed. She rested her hand against Dorothea’s breasts, squeezing them to work herself up, looking occasionally at the door, as though Manuela might come knocking. Then she said, “When you’re wearing a cock. When you’re wearing a cock and have me over your lap and finger my—my pussy and ass. When you do all that and don’t let me come. You make me put my dress back on and go back to my office with a plug in, and tell me to not look for you until all my work is done. And then you make me search all over the palace, and I can hear you in the practice room playing my piano—”

“So it’s _your_ piano now?” 

“My dearest Dorothea’s piano,” she said. It felt like someone turning a key in Dorothea’s chest, and the latch holding her together was now hanging open. It was so tempting to do what she’d normally do: grab Edelgard by the breast and reel her in for a kiss and do whatever she asked. Instead, Dorothea made herself keep the burning heat inside. “Then I open the door and see you testing a phrase, the same phrase over and over at different tempos and different keys, and I feel you inside me, I can feel you inside…” A low, throaty moan—it was her, Dorothea realized. Edelgard laughed and squeezed her cheek. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to be getting off. Haven’t you had enough yet?”

“Go back to thinking about me bending you over the piano and fucking your ass.” 

“All right, I’m thinking.” Her eyes were fixed on Dorothea’s lips. 

“Tell me,” Dorothea said. She reached down to touch herself. “I’ll put on a show for you. Finish me off, baby.” 

Her cunt was sore, like she was out of practice, but she made herself push through it. She bit down against her ring finger and ran the underside of her tongue along her wedding band as she listened, gasped and muffled her sounds with her hand, and listened some more. 

#

Two days later. She woke to Edelgard’s side of the bed empty. Dorothea’s first thought was that Edelgard had been jarred out of sleep by a nightmare and was sitting by a window to absorb as much sunlight as she could. Then she smelled the coffee. Hubert was back.

“I checked all the prisoner intake forms. Nothing matches Lady Anselma’s description. I am still looking through the records. Something may turn up yet.”

“I see. I don’t know what I expected.” 

“Your Majesty, you need to hold the cat more gently, or you’ll have claw marks in your nightgown.” 

Hubert and Edelgard were sitting on the couch together and having coffee and tea. They made for a striking pair, as usual. Hubert had cut his hair short for the campaign. He looked hard and gaunt from months of battle. Edelgard’s hair had been tossed into a low ponytail and thrown over one shoulder. They were looking at this wrinkled, horrible pink and gray—thing. Some kind of ugly goblin, was Dorothea’s first thought. 

“Look, Dorothea,” Edelgard said, holding the hideous feline up. It blinked at Dorothea with its huge green eyes. “I told you Hubert had a present for me.” 

“Hubie,” Dorothea said, her voice cracking from both the happiness of seeing him and the horror of what he had brought. “Did you bring my wife a diseased cat? It looks manged.” 

“She comes from a line of cats in Gloucester that lack fur,” Edelgard said with the same eagerness she used for the newest advances in irrigation. “Lorenz offered her as a gift. She’ll make a nice companion animal, don’t you think? I believe she has bonded with Hubert quite well already.” 

“Nonsense, Lady Edelgard,” Hubert said. “She is very taken with you already.” 

“I think she’s simply a sweet and affectionate girl. Dorothea, what do you think? Shall we take her?” 

The poor thing wouldn’t last a day outside. Dorothea found it genuinely repulsive, though she supposed she could see the appeal, if she thought hard enough: the big eyes and ears, the way she constantly sought Edelgard’s fingers. And it wasn’t like Dorothea could tell Hubert to take it back to Leicester. Dorothea grimaced and made herself pet the cat. It had very fine, thin hair close to the skin. 

“I’ll think about it,” Dorothea said. “Don’t give her a name yet.”

“Hubert already calls her Thusnelda, which I find most agreeable.” 

“You honor me, Your Majesty,” Hubert said. Dorothea groaned. 

She had almost forgotten what it was like to have to share Edelgard with Hubert. They had to take turns sharing private looks with her and each other. After Hubert finished his coffee, Edelgard sent him away to rest. She asked that he take the cat with him. 

She let Dorothea kiss her into the couch and cup her pussy through her underwear, the first time Dorothea’s hands had gotten anywhere near her since they arrived. Dorothea was wet almost instantly. Edelgard’s legs locked Dorothea in place. 

“That’s right,” she said as Dorothea moaned into her mouth. She bit Dorothea’s upper lip, holding it between her teeth while Dorothea licked the outside of her mouth in a futile attempt to get back in. Dorothea fumbled for her clit. “There we are. I see you still know how to treat me.” 

“I’ll be gentle,” she said. “I’ll hit you, if you ask me to. I’ll do anything.” 

“Take my underwear off, you silly girl. How else will you get what you want?” She thrust her hips into Dorothea’s hands, then pushed herself off the couch so Dorothea could shove her soaked underwear down to her ankles. Careful, Dorothea thought, moving her hands quick over more scars. Be careful—then Edelgard’s wet cunt was splayed in her palm, and Dorothea, embarrassingly, whimpered her name and groped her hard. She felt stupid and almost virginal, losing her mind over the smell of tea on Edelgard’s breath and the wet heat coating her palm. Edelgard laughed and kissed her. Her tongue flicked against Dorothea’s lips. “Do you like that, Dorothea? Would you like to have me in your mouth?” 

“Yes, please. Please, Edie, I want to feel you come on my face, please—”

Edelgard rolled her shoulders back and put on one of her haughty smiles. 

“No further foreplay is necessary,” Edelgard said. “Go on. Make me feel good.” 

She stopped Dorothea before she actually came, saying it was too early in the day. She kissed Dorothea and played with her breasts while Dorothea got herself off with her hands. Breakfast was waiting for them when they were done. Dorothea fetched it since Edelgard’s legs were bothering her. 

“Lysithea was still using her cane on her last visit,” Edelgard said. 

“She was using it before treatment, too. And you’d look dashing with one.” 

“Let’s get dressed. Hubert would like to see the grounds.”

She was always more of the emperor, with all its powers and burdens, when Hubert was nearby. Dorothea had been stressed, early on, by the idea of caring for Edelgard without him. His absence might have been a good thing. She’d spend the day trying to slow them down. 

#

Hubert whipped the household into shape, kept Hanneman and Manuela from making too much noise, either from their fighting or sex, and soon had the statues and paintings Edelgard didn’t care for swept away and replaced by items more to Edelgard’s liking. The number of pillows in the house increased, as did the skill of the kitchen staff. 

Byleth brought back fish and all kinds of herbs and mushrooms they found while walking the grounds. They were trying to grow a beard, but so far had succeeded only in a thin moustache and five scraggly hairs growing on one cheek. They had long conversations with Edelgard about what they saw in Shambhala and their latest plans to retire to Fhirdiad with Jeritza and Mercedes. Dorothea caught them once in the kitchen. Byleth was trying to teach Edelgard how to cut vegetables in the normal way. 

“You say you’ll run an orphanage, but I’m worried you’ll leave all the work to Mercedes,” Edelgard said, smacking the carrots apart with the knife. 

“Jeritza and I were both professors. Children like us,” Byleth said, looking hurt. “El, I need those to be diced.” 

“Are these not?” 

“No. Like this.” They demonstrated. 

Her next attempt was just as vigorous and unfortunate. Byleth quietly asked her to peel the potatoes instead. 

#

The treatments began again. Linhardt moved into the house to keep track of the side effects and to give Manuela a break as Edelgard’s pain worsened. Every time Dorothea tried to propose a change in treatments, Linhardt said no. 

“You really are the worst physician,” Dorothea said. “I’m not asking for the doses to be cut in half. Twenty percent, or even ten, would be enough.” 

“That would defeat the whole point in keeping her on a short, high-dose course. You try telling Edelgard you want her to be bleary and tired for another two months. No thanks.” 

“You’re not the one who has to wake up to her in pain.” Her voice wavered, more than she wanted it to. 

“And that’s why I’m in charge of making the decisions,” he said. Ass. “As long as she’s not shitting blood or having a stroke, she’ll make it through. Calm down.” 

On non-treatment days, Edelgard was reliably cheerful. When she was feeling well, she’d spend time listening to Dorothea on the piano, sampling the edible flowers Byleth brought back from the woods, and reviewing her letters and the latest gossip from Enbarr with Hubert while Thusnelda interrupted their conversations for pets or attention. Even when she was tired or short with them, she was no harsher than she was in Enbarr. 

And on treatment days, she was furious and hateful in a way Dorothea had never known her to be. Tense in the morning, testy over lunch, and, by afternoon, when she took treatments in her room, the refinement in her appearance and conduct were cut away: she’d curl up in the pillows, one arm extended to avoid bending the needle, and slide between difficult sleep and windows of brief, enraged consciousness. Even Hubert avoided talking to her. Dorothea felt like the only thing that would keep Edelgard’s temper from spiking was to sit very quietly and still just out of her line of sight. 

These days, when the treatments were over, Edelgard liked to take a bath right away. She wanted the water hot enough to hurt. 

“It really is fine,” Dorothea said when Edelgard started to apologize. She had said it too quickly; Edelgard wasn’t happy about being interrupted, but she had to keep talking. “I used to work the medic tents, remember? You haven’t even groped me or called me names.” 

“Who did that?” 

“All I meant,” she said quickly, “is that one day, we’ll be old and I’ll have pneumonia, and you’ll be doing everything I’m doing for you now. Or I’ll do something stupid, like trip over a brick while carrying a bunch of books, and you’ll have to nurse me to health and take care of some three-year-old monster you decided to adopt. And you’ll have to feed Thusnelda and the dogs and muck the stables by yourself, all while I’m in bed yelling at you for calling me pretty instead of beautiful. When it actually happens, you’ll feel like you’re going mad. It’ll be worth it, though. I want you to have that.” 

“You want me to have…” Her face went slack, then snapped back into place. “Worth what? What is worth—there’s no scale where pain can be transmuted into some equivalent value. It’s something you must endure, through whatever means possible. What sacrifices have I made, and why must they be ‘worth’ anything?” Dorothea’s hand jerked, trying to cover her chest, as though that might protect her. She could feel her face crumpling. Edelgard curled up in the tub. “I’m weak. I came here well, and I’ll leave my brother’s house defeated. I’ve traded my present for—for… I let you do this to me, and I thought it would make a difference if I did it for love, but it feels the same. Just as debased, just as disgusting, as helpless—” 

Dorothea put her hand on Edelgard’s shoulder, and squeezed it firmly. She knew her eyes were wet and her bottom lip quivering; that she was, very obviously, putting on a front. “Stop it,” she said. Then, because she also knew that when Edelgard wasn’t feeling well, she had to feel overpowered to finally calm down, she moved her hand up to her cheekbones and squeezed. “Stop.” 

“I speak what I think. Aren’t you always telling me to do more of that?” She was quiet after that. 

Dorothea finished cleaning Edelgard’s hair, helped dry her off, and put her in bed. Edelgard checked the clock, obviously hoping for it to be time for her medicine. Sighed, and pulled the sheets up to her chin when it wasn’t so. 

“Please stay,” Edelgard said. “I’m sorry. My words were unwarranted.” 

“I’m supposed to talk to Manuela about something,” Dorothea said. That was always her excuse when she needed time to herself. Edelgard nodded in understanding. She looked so lonely in that bed by herself. Dorothea could stay for a few minutes. She put a hand on Edelgard’s side—winced, when she saw the flash of discomfort from Edelgard at the contact. She tugged at the collar of her nightgown. Dorothea helped her unbutton it down to her sternum, ignoring the rough, alien edge in Edelgard’s face. “I still love you, if that’s what you’re worried about. You aren’t your usual self. I know that.” 

“I’m difficult, and I’m dying. Even with that out of the way, I can’t deny that my ambitions for Fodlan come before my concerns for you, my life, or my friends.” For whatever reason, that set off Edelgard’s tears, these big, silent things that fell before Edelgard could blink them back. She buried her face into a pillow right away to hide them. Dorothea rubbed her back and neck. Edelgard was a quiet crier, shoving the sobs so far down that her body jerked and shuddered like an old cart on a bumpy road. “Please make it stop. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Edie, please—” She wiped the tears from her own eyes before they could overwhelm her. She had to be the steady one. Now wasn’t the time to slip. She had seen Edelgard come apart like this only a few times, twice already in this house, and had learned quickly that if she got too emotional, the whole thing would go on for an hour or even longer. “I can’t let you stop. You promised me.” 

“I don’t care what I promised you. Please, let me stop. I can’t close my eyes without seeing them.” Her voice wasn’t like anything Dorothea had ever heard before: a fine, crushed sound, like someone stepping over sand. “The oldest kept Fire going for us so we could see each other until they couldn’t do it anymore. All of that blood, and for what? I wish they had never been born if they had to die that way.” 

A strange, groaning sound, like a house coming apart. 

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” Dorothea said. “Edie, sit up. You’ll feel better, I swear. Come on.”

“Their poison is still within me. I can feel it everywhere. It hurts. Let me stop. Please, let me take some medicine. I don’t want to be awake. Please help me. I can’t be the last one left, I can’t. Dorothea! Do as I say. Please, I need it.” 

The whole thing was grotesque and awful: her dearest friend crushed into the mattress and blankets and warped by so much pain. Dorothea had to turn her face away. There was a strict schedule for the medicine, and now wasn’t the time, no matter how much she wished that it were. She’d take care of this the hard way. 

The curtains had been drawn to help Edelgard sleep. Dorothea yanked the curtains far apart to let in more sun, and then stood at the side of the bed, facing Edelgard, with her hands out. “Get up. On your feet. I’ll pull you out if I must. Come on, baby. Edie.” 

Dorothea pulled at Edelgard's arm a few times. She went from full-bodied sobbing to silent tears in seconds. Edelgard propped herself up on one elbow, then sat up, clutching her nightgown shut with her hand. Her legs trembled as she swung them off the edge of the bed. When she stood up, they were straight. Already, confusion was setting on her face, like she couldn’t understand what had come over her. 

“I’m going to take you to Manuela, okay?” Dorothea said. “She’ll be able to whip something up for you.”

“I don’t need…” Edelgard said, cautiously as though she was afraid speaking would make her start crying again. She buttoned her nightgown back up, looking steadier with each button fastened. “Don’t hold this against me. I won’t let it happen again.” 

“I’d never hate you for being upset. Or for your tears.” Dorothea caught Edelgard’s throat working. Disgust. “You believe me, don’t you?” 

“I do. I simply find such extravagant displays a waste. I’m not used to…” Her lips trembled. She looked sick. “Can we move on?” 

“Another time.” She put her arms around Edelgard’s shoulders, careful to avoid putting too much pressure on the front of her body, and put her cheek on the side of Edelgard’s head. “I love you. I can take anything you give me, Edie. Sweet or bitter, you’re all mine.” Edelgard’s face dropped into her shoulder. She squeezed Dorothea’s waist, then pulled away, moving the back of her wrist over her eyes. 

They checked the lab, then went to the library. At the library, Edelgard sat down to catch her breath. Dorothea checked the big windows facing the back of the house. Her reflection in the glass was—ghastly, if she was honest with herself. She was just glad the worst of the day was over. 

“I see her in the garden,” Dorothea said. “Do you think you’ll be okay on the stairs?” 

“If you push me, I should manage going down just fine.” 

Dorothea went alone. Down in the garden, Manuela and Hanneman were having tea together, holding hands and laughing. They both stopped when they saw Dorothea. 

“Oh, honey,” Manuela said. 

“Sorry for making you look at this,” Dorothea said, knowing just how pitiable she looked. She decided to lean into it. Manuela opened her arms, and Dorothea buried her face into Manuela’s shoulder. “Edie’s having some trouble with her pain, and I thought it’d help if you talked to her. She’s so… I knew it’d be hard, but I didn’t realize it’d be this hard, I didn’t. She’s never going to forgive me.”

“You haven’t been giving yourself breaks, have you?” Manuela said, stroking her hair. “Poor Dorothea. Edelgard needs some extra time, and then she’ll be your Edie again. I’m going to pass you off to Hanneman. You’re working too hard, that’s all. Where is she? In your room?” 

Later in the afternoon, Hubert and Byleth came back from town with supplies for some masonry repairs. Manuela called Dorothea and Hubert to Edelgard’s room to show them the new medicines and explain the new schedule. She had told Edelgard, but wasn’t sure how much she’d remember. Dorothea wasn’t sure how much she’d remember, either. Her brain felt like someone had been kicking it around a field of burrs. Luckily, Hubert took notes. 

Dorothea and Hubert were left alone in the room to fuss over Edelgard’s sleeping form. Hubert straightened out the collar of her nightgown. He handled her the same way he always would, reverent and business-like at the same time.

“That’s nice of you,” Dorothea said. “She’ll appreciate looking neat.” 

“Yes. It’s more fitting for the emperor to be composed at all hours,” he said, without an ounce of sarcasm. He had a comb out now and used it to arrange the part of her hair. 

“Hubie, do you ever feel like you’re spoiling her? You bring her a cat and do her hair while she sleeps.”

“If Her Majesty were to ask me for my life, I would offer it freely. With the Slithers gone, the risk of her useless wretch being kidnapped and held for ransom has decreased considerably.” The cat sneaked into the room and wound itself around Hubert’s feet. He scooped it up in his arms and ignored it as it rubbed its face on his chin. “How humiliating,” he said. 

#

Nearly the end of Horsebow Moon. Dorothea had a small birthday celebration in the library. Lysithea and Ferdinand came over from the palace with gifts. Bernadetta had sent beautiful patterned cloths from Brigid, and Petra had given her a collection of folk music transcribed by a musician trained in Enbarr. The library was decorated with the last flowers of summer and first hints of autumn coming in. Edelgard’s work, along with one of her strange paintings. Flowers from the garden. It looked better from afar than up close, or it looked better with her face right up against the canvas. Dorothea couldn’t tell. It was done using a new technique invented by some young kids in the art academies. 

Lysithea and Edelgard were talking together by the big windows, near Manuela and Hanneman, who were both going through the shelves to prove something for their latest spat against each other. Lysithea bounced her cane off Edelgard’s arm. 

“I told you this would happen if you didn’t rest,” Lysithea said. “I don’t think any of the things you’re so eager to work on are even important. No one’s going to die if you don’t push yet another law about how copper pots should be weighed. Hey! Give it back!” 

“It is not a law about mere pots,” Edelgard said, turning the cane around in her palm. “A standard set of measurements is vital for all sorts of mercantile activity. Unless a pound of gold is a pound—” 

“Give it back. Give it back. El! Dorothea, make her listen to me.” 

“I won’t be treated like a disobedient dog,” Edelgard said, and had to be assaulted with kisses while she said, “Dorothea, not in front of—” before she gave it up. 

Afterwards, Lysithea took Dorothea for a walk. She looked much better these days, better than she had during the war, even. Manuela said she wouldn’t need the cane much longer. It had been three months since she finished treatment, and she was spry and putting on weight. Dorothea was happy for her. She said as much to Lysithea. 

“Thanks. I’m aware,” she said, only a little sharply. She and Edelgard had similar sore spots, though, for whatever reason, Dorothea was more prone to stepping on Lysithea’s. “I hear the same thing from my parents all the time. Speaking of parents…” 

Lysithea had a list of recommended posts for Lord Nadaud. She had helped Dorothea with some research on her father, mainly additional information that would have been difficult for her to get on her own. Numbers on his business in Boramas, rumors about what he was like in the pleasure houses, a list of cousins. 

Dorothea asked Lysithea for some help finding him a promotion that would make him miserable. Lord Nadaud loved the city, so perhaps some awful mountain town in Faerghus would do. Or one of the western fishing villages, still picking itself up from the Dagdan invasion. Lysithea shot those down. Nadaud would never accept those posts. The trick was to make it appealing to him. 

“He’s been coming to the palace to ask about you, you know.”

The idea of Nadaud sniffing around the palace steps while Edelgard was recovering made her want to squash him under her thumb. She didn’t want him seeing Edelgard in anything less than her full splendor. 

“Did you see him?” Dorothea said. “What did you think?” 

“I told the guards to escort him away before he even _reached_ the doors,” Lysithea said, puffing her chest out. “I don’t have time to deal with nobles who just want to complain.”

The party moved out to the balcony for drinks before dinner. Edelgard, Hubert, Ferdinand, and Lysithea had resisted talking about work together all night, and finally caved in—Dorothea let them, since they were having so much fun. Linhardt was explaining something to Byleth while they played with the cat; Dorothea didn’t see how either of them could possibly be paying attention to the other, but every now and then, Byleth posed a question and Linhardt would get excited and toss the cat a piece of cheese. 

Edelgard retired just before dinner. All the conversation had worn her out. 

A lively two hours at the piano after dinner, playing music and singing with Ferdinand and Manuela. There was some dancing, even by Hubert. Byleth, as usual, declined all offers, then demonstrated their old Dancer moves. 

To end her birthday, Dorothea drank with Manuela at the balcony. She had saved a rare bottle of whiskey for Dorothea. It wasn’t the stuff Dorothea liked to drink, but she took two fingers and did as Manuela instructed: breathed in through her nose, stopped making funny faces, and let air circulate in her mouth. Manuela made the whole process look elegant and sensual. Dorothea was certain she looked like one of Byleth’s gaping fish. 

“I’ll always have something to teach you, kiddo,” Manuela said with a wink. 

“How old were you when you found me again?” 

“Just about your age now. Isn’t that a thing! I never would have expected…” She stroked Dorothea’s cheek with the back of her hand, and Dorothea felt her cheek flush. “It’s what we all hope for when we find some bright young talent, but not everyone makes it onto the stage, never mind the battlefield. How does it feel to have beaten the odds?” 

“Terrifying!” she said, laughing without any cheer behind it. Her whole life, viewed from afar, was one gamble and risky bet after another. She had no idea how she had made it to Edelgard’s side. 

She took the rest of her whiskey to Edelgard’s room. Edelgard had changed into a robe, belted loose around her waist. A bunch of papers had fallen onto the floor from when Edelgard had nodded off while reading. Ferdinand clearly hadn’t obeyed Dorothea’s ‘no work for Edelgard’ rule. She’d tell him off later. 

“Do you want to try some?” Dorothea said. “It’s from Manuela’s private stock.”

“A taste, at least,” Edelgard said. Dorothea passed her the cup. She took a mouthful, then gave it back to Dorothea. “I’d like it out of your mouth, please.” 

“Someone’s in a good mood.” Dorothea took a sip, then let Edelgard lick and suck it out of her mouth. Another sip, another kiss, and then another. 

“I like this. Did you have a good birthday?”

“Say some nice things about me. Then I’ll be happy.”

Edelgard set her papers on the table and tossed her ponytail over her shoulder. She took Dorothea’s hands in hers. “Shall I go through the standards? Praise your beauty, compliment your music, and so on?” 

“At least sound like you mean it!” 

“You’re loyal, kind, and loving—not just to me, but to all those you care for. I love and trust you, and am happy you choose to be here. I know I haven’t always been in my right mind for the last few…” Her hands trembled in anger, even as her face remained placid. The part of Dorothea that swore she’d be strong for Edelgard tore, like a piece of paper losing a corner. Edelgard turned her eyes down to their hands. Without looking up, she said, “I am doing this for you. I promised you a life, not the withered stump of one.”

“I don’t love you just for your promises,” Dorothea said. “You make me very happy. Even when you’re maddening, I know how you feel. Not everyone in the world gets to be loved so completely, you know? I didn’t think it’d ever happen for me.” 

“It would’ve. Someone would have wanted you.” 

“Oh, there’s always been someone promising! But how many people actually meant it? And even if they did, it wouldn’t be the same. I don’t care if it’d be easier. I want you more. I want what I have.” Now she was getting emotional. Buried within that ‘have’ was a ‘had.’ “Edie, I’m worried I changed you.” 

She was afraid that Edelgard would make her explain how. She didn’t think she could without crying. Edelgard’s arm went loosely around her waist. “Yes, it’s not been easy. We accept changes to ourselves for love all the time. I’m sure there were plenty of times during the war…” And again, that bubbling, quick anger. She didn’t want that anger to be permanent, but she’d take it, if it meant she could still have the rest of Edelgard. “I suppose this is penance.” 

“Don’t think that way. Don’t. We’re together now, aren’t we? Despite everything then and all this now, I love you. You made this world with me. Live in it.” She took a sip of whiskey and took care to let the alcohol spread evenly across her palate, tongue, and cheeks. Manuela had gotten the strong stuff. Her mouth felt strange: numb from the alcohol, but sensitive to texture and slickness. Edelgard kissed her. 

“Next year, let’s go somewhere,” Edelgard said. Her hand was on Dorothea’s neck, ready to pull Dorothea in for more. “Anywhere you’d like, even if it’s Brigid or Almyra. I’ll find the time.” 

“Promises, promises.” She put kisses in Edelgard’s fine white hair, on the part, then her ear. She put her lips against the outside edge and let her tongue flick over the delicate skin over the tough cartilage. She held tight onto Edelgard’s other ear, pinching her earlobe between her fingers to narrow Edelgard’s attention to the sound of her breathing and Dorothea’s touches. “Are you going to be my buttercup, or do you need to rest?” 

“I can do it. Not for too long—mm.” Edelgard pulled at the back of Dorothea’s dress as she bit down on the outer ridge of her ear. Dorothea broke away long enough to climb onto the bed and settle herself over Edelgard’s stomach, though she was careful to support most of her own weight. There was no point in being with Edelgard if she accidentally hurt her. Edelgard ran her hand over Dorothea’s hips and thighs. “Dorothea, it’s your birthday. Come up and make use of me.”

“I know, but I want to feel you, too. Even if it’s just here. Or here.” She flicked her tongue along Edelgard’s ear, then thumbed Edelgard’s lips. They were rougher than they usually were, but that didn’t stop Dorothea from wanting to somehow fit her whole self between them. “I’ll kiss you until you’re begging to have your tongue in my mouth while I come. That’s plenty for me. How are you feeling? Do you want me?” 

“Please. Please, give me that, any of it.” She eased Dorothea out of the dress, but left her underwear on. She put a hand on Dorothea’s chest, keeping her away so she could look more closely. Dorothea tried not to feel too proud of herself for catching Edelgard’s eye with a nice bra. Edelgard had a thing for big breasts. “Oh, I wasn’t expecting…” She circled Dorothea’s nipples through the lace with her thumbs. Her fingers traced the floral pattern, first gently, then more roughly, until Dorothea’s nipples went stiff against the lace.

Dorothea didn’t let her play for too long. She cupped Edelgard’s face in her hands and kissed all around her lips until she was let in. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I had to cut from this chapter: Hubert and Ferdinand flirt-arguing over the value of small, rat-catching dogs.


	13. more than the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorothea puts on an opera!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Throws hands into the air. Another horny chapter, this time with anal and orgasm denial/delay.

Spring, 1196. A family moved into the haunted manor outside of town. The household consisted of two women, a small child, three dogs, and four horses. The old groundskeepers were dismissed and replaced by a set of younger, more spry workers, city folks skilled with the land and almost certainly soldiers of some kind. 

The two women could be seen together, walking the grounds with their dogs and their boy. The taller one had a devastating beauty and a charming, affable demeanor that turned guarded if someone asked about her wife or their young son. She had a habit of humming to herself when she was bored; if she was talking to a man she didn’t care for, it was said she’d hum over his words and stroll away. The other woman had striking white hair like the emperor. 

“Yes, I get that quite often,” she said scornfully. Her name was Adela, and her wife was Dorothea. They were the Arnaults. 

The town was only a short while from Enbarr: half a day by foot at a quick pace, and no more than two hours by horse. It soon became obvious that Dorothea had to be the Dorothea Arnault, the opera singer and composer, who had recently retired from the stage, though no one believed her. Rumor had it that she had run off with one of the Imperial Ministers. Some thought that Adela might be clever Lysithea von Ordelia. Pure foolishness. They eventually settled on her being one of Arnault’s captains from the war. Maybe even a general herself; she certainly was frightening enough to be one. 

They became known as generous gift givers to those who came by to help or to say hello. Soon at least half the town had stopped by to enjoy the Arnaults’ tea and the sweets made by the household’s cook and to gawk at the strange, hairless cat. The young boy rarely greeted people. When he did, he stayed close to the big dogs, and kept his face, with the knife scar on his cheek, fastidiously turned away. When Adela or Dorothea took him on errands in town, he hid behind them or ducked his head. 

It had to be asked. The house had been owned by the Vestra family for years. Did they know the house was haunted? And at that, the two women would laugh. 

“This house does have a storied history,” Adela said. “Two young lords were ambushed here in 1035—”

“Edie, not in front of Iusta.” 

“It fell into my aunt’s hands many years ago, and has since been given to me. Such is life,” she said, and pet the boy’s hair. 

By the end of summer, the boy could be seen running around the grounds with the dogs and his mothers. He was being taught how to ride. Adela was in town often. She was soon known for her good wits, intellect, and fearless approach to any problem, whether it be catching chickens or breaking up a fight. She knew the law and how to annoy the magistrate with it. She knew plenty of theory about building, though it should be said it took her some time to become good at the construction itself. 

The young boy, Iusta, was revealed to be a clever rascal. People were forever calling for Adela to come fetch him and make him give back bread and candy. The other children liked him very much, though he hated to lose, and could be beastly when Adela pulled him aside to tell him how to behave. 

A small girl joined them the next spring, sullen-faced and impossible to cheer. She never got over her shyness the way the boy had; though people were constantly trying to call her over to say hello, she always ran for her mothers. If they told her to wait, Iusta would do in a pinch. 

Dorothea was less of a presence in town. She was in Enbarr often. In the mornings, she was at the bakery, and in the evening, or the morning after, if business kept her from traveling late in the night, she came rushing back searching for flowers for her wife and children. Carnations, preferably, and when they were no longer in season, she brought sweets. 

#

It took Edelgard two years to agree to spend the opera season in Enbarr so Dorothea could stop riding back and forth all the time and spend more time with the family. The house they had in the city was secluded and walled off. They had, as far as Dorothea could tell, no neighbors. Not a pretty place, by any means, but defensible and with excellent vantage points, which satisfied both Edelgard and Hubert. 

Without her crown and regalia, people didn’t recognize Edelgard, especially when she had their two children in tow. For those who did recognize her, most knew not to approach her. She had been an emperor whose principal power had always been her axe and her willingness to use it. Even now, people avoided the arc of her swing. 

One morning, Dorothea caught Edelgard giving the children lessons on conduct at home on the second floor balcony. One of the big dogs was with them; the other two were making their rounds outside. Hubert had trained the dogs, and it showed. 

The children were Iusta and Osanna. Iusta was eight, their stringbean son, and had dark, curly hair and deeply freckled skin. Osanna was nearly six and from Mercedes’ orphanage in Fhirdiad. She followed Edelgard everywhere, dragging a wooden sword behind her. If Dorothea played music, she’d pick up a recorder and blow air through it without much success. 

“Pick a point on the horizon and focus your eyes on that,” Edelgard said, kneeling and pointing at the roofs. “They can sense your fear. You must not show any of it.” 

“Most people don’t care about who you are,” Dorothea said. “Enbarr’s a big city. It’s not like in town, where this one is in charge of everything.”

“I’m not in charge of everything. I do only what’s expected of me as a citizen of the Empire to help and support my fellow citizens.” Edelgard got to her feet and squeezed Dorothea’s arm. “Your Mama is right. Enbarr is a big city. There are many people of great distinction on the streets. Perhaps ten years from now, you’ll be one of them, hmm?” 

“Try twenty!” Dorothea said. “Just because someone was emperor at eighteen…” 

“Anyone can become emperor at eighteen should they prove themselves worthy,” Edelgard said without blinking an eye. “Are you taking the children to Mittelfrank today? Come here and kiss Mommy goodbye.”

“Aaaah!” Iusta screamed when she kissed his cheek. 

“Iusta!” Dorothea said. “You’ll hurt Mommy’s feelings. Be good.”

“It’s fine, Dorothea,” Edelgard said. 

“It’s not fine. He knows how he should act and chooses not to. Don’t you see he’s making light of you?” Edelgard was giving her a look that said that she did not care. Iusta kicked his heel against the wall. He bit his fingers. Dorothea sighed. “Don’t look sad. Apologize.” 

Edelgard liked all the parts of parenting that drove Dorothea mad: cleaning after them, getting into inane, heated arguments with Iusta over what he could and could not have for dinner, teaching them, with some clumsiness, how to correctly apologize to one another and strangers. Dorothea hadn’t realized how ready Edelgard was for that big family until Byleth asked how many children they planned on having. “Three? Five? Eight?” they said. Edelgard turned to Dorothea with naked excitement. “Ten?” they said. 

For now, two. She wanted to make sure they could steer Iusta and Osanna right first. She wanted to know her babies would be safe and happy and not irrevocably damaged by her, or the world, or whatever it was that turned sweet children into contemptible adults. If they grew up to be merely hale, that would be enough, but she wanted them to be good and kind, too. 

It was still quiet in the opera house when they arrived. She gave them the grand tour: here was the basement, the props closet, backstage, the pulleys and winches they used to move backdrops and different sets. She slipped them under the ropes keeping them from the boxes and brought them to the emperor’s box, where Edelgard still watched her perform during the season; one privilege of the crown she had kept. 

“When you’re old enough to come to the opera, here is where you’ll sit,” Dorothea said. 

“I can’t see anything,” Osanna said quietly. Dorothea picked her up—those adorable arms!—and put her on her hip. 

“Someday, this is how tall you’ll be,” she said. “You’ll be taller than Iusta is now, taller than Mama and Mommy. You’ll be a giant.” 

Some of the trainees were practicing in the back. They fawned over Iusta and Osanna, pinching their cheeks and exclaiming, “They’re just like you!” It was very effective flattery, especially when she saw how Iusta smiled and squirmed at the compliment. The trainees had questions for her, too, about the intended delivery of some lines and how to best support their voices. Rehearsal for her latest opera, _The Crimson Path_ , started in the afternoon, and though Dorothea wasn’t technically the director, everyone came to her with questions. 

She had finally written the war opera she meant to write all those years ago. She didn’t have the voice she hoped she’d have; she had gotten older and her voice with it. She thought Edelgard should be played by some bright young thing, but the director had insisted the maturity was needed. If she sounded older, then at least she was a better performer. She once made Hubert cry with her singing. He didn’t like to admit it, but he had. 

At noon, one of Edelgard’s personal guard came by to take the kids back home. At least eight of them had followed Edelgard after she retired. It seemed like a pretty boring career change to Dorothea, but the guards seemed to like it, and the kids loved them, too. 

“What are you going to learn about today?” Dorothea said. 

“Mommy says we’re going to learn geometry so we can learn magic,” Iusta said. “But _I_ want to learn how to fight people with swords.”

“Oh yeah? Does Mommy let you win?” 

“No. Sometimes, but not enough.”

“‘You’ll always have to fight against someone better than you’—is that what she says? I’m not too bad with a sword, myself. I can show you how to take her by surprise.” She saw his skepticism and, before she could feel hurt by it, lunged at him and poked him on the shoulder. He yelped and giggled. Still had it. “Wake up early tomorrow, and I’ll show you,” she said. She squeezed his cheeks and sent him off. 

#

The kids were in bed when Dorothea came back. Edelgard was writing a letter in her office, with her mirror angled to see people coming from behind. A letter from her father was at the top of Edelgard’s inbox. 

Edelgard handled all his letters these days. From what Edelgard told her, the contents of his letters never changed. He raged against Dorothea, how she kept him from his city over a single slight, a mistake he made twenty-five years ago—as though he couldn’t have come looking for her, or even gave her mother money for medicine, or any of it. Dorothea had no patience or kindness for him, and no desire to anger him, either. She wanted him to stay away until he actually understood why she hated him. Judging from the speed Edelgard moved the letter to the bottom, they might be waiting a long while yet. 

Dorothea looked over Edelgard’s shoulder. The letter she was working on was to Ferdinand about funding extra grain storage around Fhirdiad. Edelgard would be seeing him at the end of the week when Ferdinand came to the house—they never went to the palace these days to avoid any rumors that she had any untoward influence over Ferdinand’s actions. 

“Words, words,” Dorothea said. “Did you miss me?” 

“I’m nearly done. Only—”

“Seven pages left, knowing you.” Edelgard put her quill back in its holder and wiped her wrist and side of her hand on the rag. She had started leaving her gloves off at home when they took in Iusta. Now her hands, sometimes even her arms, were left bare around the house. Dorothea bent down for a kiss. “Were the kids mad I missed dinner?” 

“They were too excited by their field trip. Tell me about rehearsals.” 

“Why? You don’t even like this one. Usually by this point, you’ve come by to see for yourself.” When Edelgard smiled and said nothing else, Dorothea said, “Do you think I’m being unfair to Edie the person or Emperor Edelgard the character?” 

“I’ve told you it’s too soft on the emperor,” Edelgard said flatly. “I don’t need you trying to persuade people there was some tragic heroine underneath the armor. The people can decide for themselves without you manipulating them.” 

“I’m not the only one writing about you, and I’m fairer and sharper to you than most. Not that you’d know unless you went to see it.” Dorothea pulled up the stool Edelgard kept for Thusnelda. She put Thusnelda’s pillow on top of Edelgard’s books. “You said you were fine with it when I showed you the draft and sang you the songs. Did you not mean it?” 

Edelgard rested her elbow against the desk in thought. She had clear and easily articulated ambitions when it came to Fodlan and their family; the ones for herself, as a person, were so buried that it took time to drag them to the surface. “I don’t like the idea of looking backwards. In any respect. I feel too old for it. I’d much rather that you write an opera about what Fodlan will be like a hundred years.” 

“Just because you’ve lived through something doesn’t mean you have to pretend it never happened,” Dorothea said. “If anything, it’s more natural to look back at least a few times.” 

“I don’t want to be remembered in a way that I can’t control. Which is something I intend to fix,” she said, apparently not quite hearing herself. 

She brought her foot to the inside of Edelgard’s knee. “If you come to rehearsals, you can critique my performance all you want, Frau I Don’t Need To Control How I’m Remembered,” she said. 

The fun part about going to bed with Edelgard these days was that Dorothea could claim almost anything was for the sake of enhancing her performance. The beautiful way Edelgard tossed her head back as Dorothea prepared her asshole wasn’t going to make it on stage; nor would the ragged gasps she made as she seated herself onto Dorothea’s cock, nor the eager push of her ass against Dorothea’s thighs. This had no artistic relevance aside from giving her some extra pep at tomorrow’s rehearsals. 

Dorothea pushed a finger into Edelgard’s empty cunt. Soaked and tight. The redness in Edelgard’s face spilled down into her neck and chest, and she adjusted her feet so Dorothea’s fingers had more room to maneuver inside her. Dorothea caught Edelgard’s clit, and Edelgard let out a series of gasping moans, loud enough that Dorothea had to shush her before she woke the dogs. 

“I love seeing you like this,” Dorothea said once her tongue unstuck itself from the roof of her mouth. She felt huge, in the best way. “You make taking my cock look so easy. Is it easy?” 

“Too good to be easy.” Her hand grabbed at the bedsheets next to Dorothea’s hair. Her cunt was hot and slick and growing slicker. Every time she came down, she moved her hips in circles, putting pressure on Dorothea’s clit. “I’m going to… I want to so much, Dorothea. Please. I want you more than anything. Please don’t take it away.” 

“How quiet do you think you can be?” Dorothea said. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep her own climax from overtaking her. Edelgard begging always did it for her. 

“No, I’m—ah, I’m… I can’t be quiet when you’re in me. I’m going to…” Dorothea rolled her hips up, and Edelgard slapped her hand over her own mouth. She dropped her weight into Dorothea’s lap and made herself still. Dorothea slipped a second finger into her cunt and bent her fingers forward. Edelgard squeezed around the strap in her ass, and her cunt gripped her fingers at a different rhythm. Close. It was going to be a good one. 

“You can come if you give me your mouth. I’ll keep you quiet,” she said, lifting her hand up. Edelgard took Dorothea’s fingers between her lips and sucked them, and Dorothea felt a whimper escape her own mouth. Dorothea thrust into Edelgard with her hips and her hands, and fuck. She should have put Edelgard on her stomach earlier. As nice as it was to see Edelgard come apart face-to-face, Dorothea missed the leverage she had in other positions.

She felt Edelgard’s orgasm on her fingers: the wet clench of her cunt and the sudden sharp edge of her teeth biting down—Dorothea withdrew her hand quickly and slid her fingers out of her cunt, too, before it could get too sensitive. Edelgard dropped down to her elbows and kissed her way into Dorothea’s mouth, not ready to stop. Her nipples were hard beads against Dorothea’s tits. She fucked herself on Dorothea’s cock with renewed energy, intent on bringing herself off again. Dorothea almost let herself get lost in the rocking motion of their bodies, the pleasant friction on her clit, and the heat of their lips together. No. She couldn’t let Edelgard come again yet. Not because Dorothea didn’t like how sweet and affectionate Edelgard would be after, but because there had to be a rhythm to when and how often Edelgard got to come. Otherwise, the game was only half as fun. 

“All right, that’s enough,” Dorothea said, breaking the kiss. “Get off.” 

“No, no! Please. Let me touch myself while you’re still in me, please—” 

“You already came! I have rehearsals, and you have lunch with Lysithea tomorrow. We’re busy. And Lysithea’ll make fun of you for walking funny.” 

“I don’t care. She doesn’t frighten me. Dorothea, please. You were so good to me. I want to feel that way again. I want you to make me feel like I belong to you.” She had her hands on Dorothea's cheek and chest, and her eyes shone with an earnest light. Her disheveled hair and pink lips and the tenderness of Edelgard’s hand all pleased Dorothea. There was a time when Dorothea would have given Edelgard anything she wanted after a nice speech like that. Even now, she wasn’t immune. Dorothea gave her cheek a kiss. 

“Think about what’s waiting for you when Hubie takes the kids for us next week.” Didn’t work. Too moody for that. “Edie, you’ve had enough. Off.” She slapped Edelgard’s hip and ass until Edelgard dismounted, unbuckled the harness from Dorothea’s hips, and set it aside, visibly unhappy. Dorothea wound her hands through her hair. Then she yanked and put her heels against Edelgard’s back until she was forced to arch uncomfortably between Dorothea’s legs. Dorothea’s chest went hot at the sight of Edelgard’s bared throat and her bitten lips. She was going to come all over that mouth. “Is that what you want? For me to drag you around on your knees until you earn the right to come again? Or do you want to make me come? You only get one. I won’t play nice if you pick the first option.” 

“I’ll—” She put her hands on the inside of Dorothea’s thighs. Her eyes went to Dorothea’s cunt. Ah, she was very interested now. “I’ll make you come. Please. Thank you, I mean.” 

No matter what Dorothea did to her, Edelgard was always an attentive lover. She covered Dorothea’s entire pussy with her mouth, her tongue moving in slow waves against and between her folds, sensitive from watching Edelgard on top of her for so long. Suction on her clit in a quick, pulsing rhythm, half of Edelgard’s hand diving into her and massaging her relentlessly from the inside, and Dorothea came stupidly easy, kicking Edelgard’s back with her heels and covering her mouth with a pillow to muffle her cries. Edelgard looked up with messy, wet lips and cheeks. 

“Still want more, I see,” Edelgard said. 

“I didn’t marry you for your back talk.” And then, as the trembling weakness went down her legs: “Oh, Edie—Edie…” 

When they were done cleaning up, Edelgard let the cats back into the room. Thusnelda took her usual place behind Edelgard’s knees. Sir Mouser was more restless, walking on top of Dorothea’s breasts and trying to put himself on her pillow. Dorothea shoved him off. 

“Go sleep on your own bed, for once,” she said. Sir Mouser jumped back onto the bed. Dorothea put him on the floor two more times before he stalked out of the room, tail swishing. 

“Don’t be mad at him. He’s a cat,” Edelgard said. She gathered Dorothea into her arms until her cheek rested against Dorothea’s neck and her breasts flattened against her back. 

“He’s _your_ cat. He can handle it.” 

After Edelgard fell asleep, Thusnelda walked around Edelgard and came over to Dorothea’s side of the bed. She had a much harder time being meaner to Thusnelda when she looked so ridiculous, like a plucked chicken. Dorothea patted her head a few times and was rewarded by the cat sticking her claws into her thigh. 

# 

Ferdinand stopped by the house with Hubert. They were to have breakfast at the house, then head out to the nearby beach to ride. Ferdinand was constantly trying to foist ponies onto their children, though by now he knew to ask Dorothea before Edelgard. 

Unlike Edelgard, Ferdinand wore no crown and rarely wore armor, even in public. He was still lean and had that incredible smile. He looked much like himself and without as much to prove. Dorothea was happy for him. 

“My favorite niece and nephew!” Ferdinand said, grabbing them and swinging them around. The dogs lost their minds at the sight of him, jumping and practically begging for treats. Even Sir Mouser stopped by to see the commotion. Hubert snapped his fingers, and the dogs sat down and wagged their tails while panting. 

Edelgard and Hubert went off to talk about something in a dark corner. Ferdinand played with the kids and dogs and tried to get Thusnelda to come over to him; Thusnelda scampered right past him to rub her face against Hubert’s boots. 

On the coast, Dorothea and Ferdinand took the children into the water, and Edelgard and Hubert stayed on the beach, both huddling in the shade of the big umbrella. Osanna soon got tired and returned to Edelgard and Hubert to nap. Ferdinand taught Iusta the back stroke and breast stroke; then Iusta was tired, too, and getting sunburnt. He clung onto Dorothea’s shoulders as she took him back to the beach. 

“I wanna, I don’t want to go back,” he said, his little fists hitting the salt off her shoulders and back. “I want to play more.” 

“Oh, he’s adorable,” Ferdinand said, his eyes shining.

“He knows he’s cute. Don’t fall for it,” she said. “Do you and Hubie ever think about kids?” 

“All the time. But I’d like one of my own blood, and I’d like to have some kind of relationship with the mother. It’s been difficult to think of people who’d be willing.” 

“You didn’t even think of me or Edie?” she said, feigning insult. 

“Would you?! Oh. You see what I mean about the difficulty now,” he said glumly. “You have a family already. Hubert warned me earlier I would be unsuccessful should I ask, yet I allowed myself to be swept away by grandiose hopes and ambitions—utterly unbecoming of the emperor!” 

“Oh, Ferdie,” she said. “It’s okay to want something. Who else are you planning on asking? I’ll help.” 

Edelgard and Hubert were still talking together. They had opened one of the bottles of wine and were passing the bottle between them. Judging by the pinkness in Hubert’s cheeks, they were talking about something raunchy. 

“Over the head—like a little hat? Really?” Edelgard said. “Does it work?” 

“Some say so, yes. Though I must stress that it is used in conjunction with other methods.”

“And it doesn’t impede sensation or worsen the experience for the receiver? The lamb intestine pouch seems inoffensive enough, but I can’t say I approve of the bone hat… Why not simply use a toy and bring yourself to completion afterwards? Or use some other way of joining their bodies. Between the thighs or other orifaces, for example.” 

Hubert was glowing pink at the ears. “My lady, I cannot be held accountable for the sexual habits of an entire continent.” 

“I’m not saying you should be.” 

“Yet you continue to interrogate me.” 

“What are you two talking about?” Dorothea said. 

“Contraception,” Edelgard said just as Hubert said, “Manuela’s initiative.” 

“Well, which is it?” she said. She regretted asking: the next thing she knew, they were embroiled in an extended four-way argument about appropriate levels of assistance to give Brigid with their recent Dagda troubles that only ended when Osanna woke up and started crying because she couldn’t find them. 

“Stop crying,” Iusta said. “They’re right over there. Stop crying!” 

“Ssh,” Dorothea said, picking up Osanna while Ferdinand and Edelgard fussed over Iusta. “We were behind you. We’d never go anywhere without you. Come on, sweetcheeks.” 

Osanna was rubbing snot onto Hubert’s handkerchief. She was calmer, and held Hubert’s hand while Dorothea held her. How strange to be the one reassuring someone else that she’d always be there. It was an impossibility—tragedy kept no calendar or schedule—but Dorothea meant it. Under the other umbrella, Edelgard was trying to get Iusta to stay still so Ferdinand could heal his sunburns. She loved them all too much. 

#

Dorothea brought the children to the opera house a few more times before rehearsals really got busy. The musicians loved putting Osanna in front of the timpani or harp. Dorothea started letting Osanna into the music room with her while she composed, and Iusta followed, though he would get bored once he realized there really was nothing to do there except poke at the piano or stare out the window. He usually left to bug Edelgard or one of the guards, but sometimes he’d stay and ask her questions about what she was working on and tell her what he had done that day, or the day before. 

Edelgard arrived just before rehearsals started in her usual disguise: hair bound up and veiled, body covered by a black dress, and wearing one of Dorothea’s big hats. As always, her attempts to be inconspicuous failed. Dorothea knew she had arrived before she even made her way past the door. 

The director didn’t yell at anyone—he certainly couldn’t yell at Edelgard—but he stomped around going, “If you want to be here until midnight, go ahead. Go ahead!” while snacking on the candied Dagdan fruits Edelgard gave him. Actors came up to her for character notes; then trainees wanted to see whether it was really Edelgard von Hresvelg, the old emperor, and who was this Adela Arnault? Dorothea quickly ushered Edelgard backstage. 

“I’d give you the grand tour, but you’ve been here before,” Dorothea said. She was in costume, a modified army uniform with a red cape and red tights. She thought it’d be strange, but it felt like she was wearing any old costume. Edelgard looked different these days. Less wound up and armored, and more relaxed. Comfortable in the life she had. 

Edelgard opted to watch from the back of the house, a distance Dorothea was sure Edelgard had never watched an actual show. She covered her hair, but every now and then, Dorothea caught flashes of white. From the looks of it, she spent most of her time reading and writing her letters. Dorothea couldn’t blame her. They did and redid the same four scenes like it was some kind of hellish punishment.

Once Dorothea realized they weren’t going to get anywhere near the scenes she wanted to show Edelgard, she couldn’t keep her focus on the performance or the songs. Her attention kept drifting to her irritation with the director. He was needlessly hard on her. Things were getting heated on stage, and Dorothea, though she always tried to put on a good example for the others, found herself swept in. 

During the break, she went down to the audience. She wanted Edelgard to baby her. 

“I didn’t realize the production was having so much difficulty,” Edelgard said. Dorothea scowled. “It’s not a judgment.” 

“Right. Right, I know. It’s just today. We made some changes to the staging last week… Excuses. That’s all I have.” 

Edelgard patted the sweat off Dorothea’s face with her handkerchief. “The director’s fighting with you because he thinks you’re distracted,” she said. “This is your opera. Everything on this stage is yours.”

“But I want it to be for you. I did this whole thing so you could see it. I mean, what’s the point…” 

“Dorothea. Stop that.” Edelgard went rummaging through her pockets and took out a piece of ginger candy. It was the same move she used on the kids when they became cranky from hunger. Only Iusta and Hubert liked ginger candy, though Edelgard was slowly developing a taste for it. No doubt Osanna, too, would crave it as she got older. Dorothea took the candy without complaining about how the spice would burn her mouth. She was in full misbehaving actor mode and could not be taken too seriously. They both knew it. 

“Did you see how that director yells at me?” she said. 

“Expect no pity from me. I had to work with Ferdinand von Aegir for fifteen years,” she said. Dorothea laughed. “Every season, they beg you to compose and sing for them. They admire and respect you. How did you intend for this rehearsal to go? Set a goal—” 

“And accomplish it. I know.” As much as she wanted to spend the rest of break talking with Edelgard, she had to go back to her stage as—their leader. As someone who needed this to succeed, not just for herself, but for the whole company’s sake. It wasn’t like this little show would bring back the dead or settle the question of whether the Reunification War had been just or unjust. All she wanted to do was to put how she felt about the war—her life—in human terms with music the audience would remember. She wanted her sweet, merciless Edie to be remembered not as a god or tyrant, but a person. The director was worried it’d be too controversial to put on. If this ended her career, Dorothea was fine with that. 

Opera season would be over soon enough. Then they’d head back to town with all their animals grouchy in their cages or put to work. There’d be a week where the kids would run around the grounds and find their town friends, and the dogs would be jumpy and nervous, barking at anyone who came too close. A line of people would be waiting for Edelgard to solve their problems. Then everything would settle down again, and she and Edelgard would have some time between lunch and tea to sit and catch up with one another. And then when they were done talking, they could look at each other until they thought of new things to say. Or look for the pleasure of looking. 

“I should go talk with the director,” Dorothea said before she could get carried away in her thoughts. “You’ll stay a while longer? Watch my sad show plod on for another hour, at least?” 

“To the end,” Edelgard said. “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "This will be a short 20k banger," I said confidently to myself in December 2019, not knowing... 2020... 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's read and enjoyed red to the thorns, my big self-indulgence project fueled by early 20th century American female poets, 21st century women on their guitars, and Jackie Chan movies from the 80s and 90s. 
> 
> Thank you to those who created fanart and comics for this fic. I've linked to them here. If you enjoyed looking, give them a shout out on the Twitter-sphere. If you make something, drop me a comment and I'll add it to the list. 
> 
> Comic: ["Look if you must. I only ask that you don't gawk."](https://twitter.com/LeishaRiddel/status/1243318679267422209) https://twitter.com/LeishaRiddel/status/1243318679267422209  
> Illustration: ["She was not the only one who was overworked..."](https://twitter.com/LeishaRiddel/status/1240292108482854917) https://twitter.com/LeishaRiddel/status/1240292108482854917  
> Comic: ["If this is what tears get me, I'll stop producing them immediately."](https://twitter.com/LeishaRiddel/status/1242985415407218689) https://twitter.com/LeishaRiddel/status/1242985415407218689  
> Illustration: ["What do you mean by 'I'm yours?'"](https://twitter.com/jireemblem/status/1236889651861839878) https://twitter.com/jireemblem/status/1236889651861839878 
> 
> In my head, Hubert retires from the spy business in his 50s, or so he claims. Ferdinand remains in government in some capacity for the rest of his life. He gets that kid he was hankering for. Lysithea becomes emperor and, after retiring, becomes the professor who assigns 500 pages of reading a week and will throw you out of the seminar if you haven't read all of it. Linhardt remains irrepressibly himself. Manuela and Hanneman found a school of magic and medicine for commoners in Enbarr. Byleth, Jeritza, and Mercedes have an indecipherable thing going on. Byleth eventually moves back to Enbarr, then to Brigid, to be closer to the fish. 
> 
> Bernadetta continues to travel often and opens Enbarr's first museum. Petra, Shamir, Leonie, Claude, Caspar, and Ashe are all great friends, who may or may not be sleeping together. Lorenz lives to be really old and forever at the cutting edge of fashion. He continues to provide Edelgard with naked cats.
> 
> Edelgard and Dorothea shuttle back and forth between Enbarr and the countryside, adopt more kids, and finally find a dog Dorothea doesn't hate. The cats remain Edelgard's and/or the kids', depending who was last spoiling them. Dorothea's career as a composer peaks some twenty years after this. Future musical anthropologists love her. Edelgard becomes an extremely controversial painter/ceramics artist/oddly influential local magistrate. Future scholars cannot agree whether Adela Arnault and the Flame Emperor are the same person and have screaming matches at unrelated conferences about how to interpret her paintings, proving that Edelgard wank lives on forever. 
> 
> FE3H fandom, you've been a great time. Thank you again for reading. 
> 
> -sb


End file.
